OUR VIEWS Consensus Opinion

Got Gailey?

After weeks of speculation about football Head Coach Chan Gailey's potential future with two different professional football teams, the Tech community should be relieved to hear that he will be staying with the Jackets. That does not just mean avoiding the headache of a new head coach search; Tech will also have the added benefit of keeping a head coach for more than a few years-Gailey is the ninth head coach since Bobby Dodd retired in 1966.

The Jackets have been consistent, and even improving, during the six years of Gailey's tenure. Currently, Gailey can claim the 12th ranked recruiting class in the country. The fact that Gailey has been at the top of several coaching searches without submitting his own name suggests that he is in high demand in the coaching world, and the Jackets should be thankful to have such a prolific figure at the head of the coaching staff.

While every team in the Atlantic Coast Conference may strive to be the best team, Tech's expectations remain reasonably well-founded with Gailey's continued improvement in recruiting and season records. In fact, Gailey is only the second coach in Tech history, following John Heisman, to never have a losing season.

If the Jackets had to lose Calvin Johnson to the NFL, at least we can look forward to some continuity next season and to better things ahead for the future of Tech football.

Split proposals

Though the Mandatory Student Fee Allocation Committee postponed the vote about the proposed Athletic Association (AA) fee increase, the postponement seems pointless and the outcome seems inevitable. As a whole, the undergraduates favor the initial flat-rate proposal, while the graduates favor the second proposal, which would require an additional fee for students who wish to attend football or basketball games.

The graduate position is a reasonable one. Most graduate students lack the time for or interest in sporting events and should not have to pay for something that they do not use. The second proposal would benefit those graduate students who have the interest but lack the time required to camp out for tickets by guaranteeing them tickets to the desired events when they pay the $100 fee. Additionally, the graduate students who do not attend sporting events would be saving money.

However, the first proposal is better for the Tech community as a whole, a majority of which is undergraduate students, after all. It will also prevent a drastic decrease in event attendance.