To the editors:

After two weeks of laudable coverage, The Crimson slid into petty politics and poor journalism with this morning’s coverage of the Rally for Patriotism and American Unity (News, “Student Rally For Patriotism Draws Few,” Sept. 26). A front-page, above-the-fold headline is devoted to the fact that few people attended an outdoor rally in the rain. While the second paragraph mentions this “steady rain,” the connection is left to those with more common sense than Crimson editors. I eagerly await the first liberal IOP speaker whose sparsely attended talk on a cold and snowy Cambridge night is headlined by The Crimson for “Draw[ing] Few.”

To match this indignity on the front page, the Sports section is marred by another piece of poor journalism in the article on the “soccer renaissance” under Coach Steve Kerr (“Kerr Keys M. Soccer Renaissance,” Sept. 26). While the editors should be ashamed for running this article before congratulating our peers on the field, the article is perhaps worse in quoting no independent sources (players, fans, other coaches or soccer observers) and thus letting the story slip into Kerr’s self-congratulation. Neither Kerr nor The Crimson, for instance, mention that Harvard’s senior soccer players represent the last vestiges of the 1998 8-6-2 team that almost made it to the NCAA tournament their freshman year. Kerr neither created nor independently sustains soccer at Harvard.

Clay B. Tousey III ’02

Sept. 26, 2001