OUR VIEWS Consensus Opinion

Changes to the norm

Chan Gailey, Tech's head football coach for the past six seasons, was fired on Monday after yet another loss to the Georgia Bulldogs. Although Director of Athletics Dan Radakovich said the decision to let Gailey go was not based on his performance against Tech's arch-rival, the team's record against UGA under Gailey is indicative of a culture of mediocrity that Radakovich is seeking to eliminate.

Gailey's teams never lost fewer than five games in a season, leaving the Jackets to travel to relatively unimportant bowl games like the Humanitarian Bowl in beautiful Boise, Idaho. Furthermore, the team has not shown consistency in preparation, often losing to mediocre teams the same season that it pulled off major upsets.

The danger of consistent mediocrity is that fans will get used to a certain level of performance and begin to be apathetic about their team. Such apathy would lead to poorer attendance at home games, reduced donations and lower season ticket sales. All together, this could create a domino effect that would cause a significant drop in the quality of the football program. Radakovich's hope is to replace Gailey with a coach who has the potential to restore the excitement to the Institute's program and awaken the team from its slumber, thereby bringing more fans to the stands of Bobby Dodd Stadium.

Presumably the hope is that the extra fans will also offset the $4 million Tech will pay Gailey for the remainder of his contract. While this cost, along with the inevitably large sum we will be forced to pay our new coach, seems unrealistic, it is unfortunately simply part of the cost of playing football in the NCAA these days. As such, we can only hope the replacement coach lives up to our expectations-students will not tolerate another hike in the Athletic Fee to pay Gailey for leaving.

Ticketing Troubles

The ticketing process for the UGA game left a number of students miffed, as many groups that camped out overnight were unable to secure tickets. In response to the vast quantities of ticketless students, the Student Government Association has formed a task force to investigate the situation.

We certainly hope the group is willing to explore all options for resolving the issues, and we hope to see them investigating other schools' distribution methods and adapting ours to integrate features from some of the more successful ones. At the same time, they must keep in mind the fact that the local reality at Tech is rather unique, and act accordingly.