Letter to the editor
At Ohio State there has been a high standard built upon a tradition of success. As we hold football and men’s basketball to an elite status, we do so too with our women’s basketball team. It came as no surprise to fans and media Tuesday when coach Jim Foster was told that he and the university would part ways after 11 seasons. The move brought a strong reaction from the public who asked, “Why not sooner?” A recent Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame inductee, Foster accumulated 783 career wins in his 35 years of coaching while setting a new standard at Ohio State by going 279-82, winning a Big Ten record six straight regular season championships from 2005-10, including four Big Ten tournament championships and an OSU record 10 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances. For eight straight years, OSU boasted the conference’s Player of the Year. Most importantly, he graduated nearly every one of his players with the exception of one during his 35 years as head coach. National Championships certainly are nice, but in big-money athletics, have we once again overlooked the idea of the student-athlete? Publicly labeled as a man who didn’t do enough on the court, he certainly proved his worth with his record and did what any good leader in his industry should do – help young women earn a college degree from one of the most prestigious universities in the country. The question isn’t whether he did enough but whether we expected too much.
Reid Guzdanski
Fourth-year in sport industries
[email protected]
