Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, September 25,1987 Opinion The Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of ; Texas Press*Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Sondra Pickard, Editor John Jarvis, Managing Editor Sue Krenek, Opinion Page Editor Rodney Rather, City Editor Robbyn Lister, News Editor Loyd Brumfield, Sports Editor Tracy Staton, Photo Editor Editorial Policy The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspaper oper- , ated as a community service to Texas A&M and Bryan-College Sta- ' don. ■ Opinions expressed in THe Battalion are those of the editorial ; -board of tK’e author, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Texas A&M administrators, faculty or the Board of Regents. The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper for students in reporting, editing and photography classes within the Depart ment of Journalism. The Battalion is published Monday through Friday during Texas A&M regular semesters, except for holiday and examination periods. Mail subscriptions are $17.44 per semester, $34.62 per school year and $36.44 per full year. Advertising rates furnished on re quest. Oiir address: The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4111. Secona class postage paid at College Station, TX 77843. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, College Station TX 77843-4111. Load, ready, aim, Have you ever asked yourself what makes a university great? Is it the student body? Is it the campus? Is it tradition? Is it a R. Lee Sullivan Guest Columnist Strike two, you're out Well, well. For the second time in five years, the National Football League Players Association has gone on strike against the owners — but this time, the association says, the issues are different. In the 1982 Walkout, which lasted 57 days ? the players sought a piece of television revenues. This year the key issue is free agency, a system that in effect would auction players to the highest bidder for their services. Players who think the owners will agree to free agency may have taken one too many hard tackles. Free agency would cause salaries to skyrocket and allow the Bears and Raiders of the league to field great teams at the expense of the Packers and Bills. Many of the players on the picket lines are there to show team unity — they couldn’t care less about free agency, guar anteed contracts or pension benefits. There is nothing wrong with solidarity, but when the players earn an average annual sal ary of $230,000, their efforts seem greedy at best. The owners show little inclination to strike a deal — they’re bringing in free agents to ensure that the season continues. And the strikers’ behavior — throwing rocks at buses carrying free agents and brandishing shotguns at players who cross the picket line — hardly enhances their standing with the public. The players may claim to have a noble cause, but this is one fight they can’t win. nationally-ranked football team? Sure, all of these things are important in the making of a truly unsurpassed university, and Texas A&M possesses these critical qualifications in spades. Even better, the distance between A&M and other well-known institutions is getting smaller with each passing day. The milestone addition of new buildings like the parking garage (not to mention Clayton Williams’ donation of the largest jewelry store located on any college campus in the Western world) ensures that soon nobody will be able to say that A&M doesn’t have it all. Or do we? Hold on a minute; I know what you’re thinking: “Oh no, here comes another cheap shot at A&M for not having one of those guys running around on the sidelines at football games dressed up like a cartoon mascot.” Get real. Where would we find anybody willing to wear a ten-foot collie costume? No, there’s something much more disturbing missing from A&M, and its absence opens up a space between us and other nationally recognized universities. Having the only pet cemetery on any college campus in the United States is not enough. We must redouble our efforts to make certain that A&M is recognized as being in the same category of corporate excellence as super-achievers like Lee laccoca, Welcome to beautiful Bermuda HAMILTON, Bermuda — A few months ago, I visited Bermuda and did not have a very good time. Someone at a local private golf course made some rather crude remarks concerning my shorts being too Lewis Grizzard I wasn’t sure what to expect, so I got off my plane at the Bermuda airport dressed in a disguise. I wore socks. I got to my hotel, the Southhampton Princess, without incident. I checked into my room, bolted the door and remained there until the next morning. It was then I ventured out of my room for the first time and went down for breakfast, which was no longer being served. I asked for lunch. I attempted to pour myself a cup, but a waiter snatched the pot away from me and told me to sit down, he’d bring me the coffee. I did, and he did, and in a few hours I’ll be on a plane out of here. short, I got irfto a shouting match with a hotel doorman becapse I called to a taxi without consulting him first, and a hotel bartender threatened to punch me out when I mentioned 15 minutes was a . long time to wait for a drink. I wrote a column about my bad experiences here and received mixed reactions. Several readers wrote to tell me how they also have been treated rudely in Bermuda. Others, including the Bermuda tourist agency, suggested I be thrashed by irate cricket players for my remarks. The Hamilton newspaper even rap a story and headlined it, “Negative writer returns to island” — which is the subject for today’s effort. I have indeed returned to Bermuda to make a speech, for which I shall receive a check. “Lunch isn’t served until 11:30,” I was told. In conclusion, may I say I have not experienced half the hassles in Bermuda as I experienced before, and that may or may not be directly related to the fact I have spent a lot of time in my room, have never complained about a single thing, and have sat down and shut up whenever anybody told me to. “Then I’ll just have a Coke,” I said. “No C6ke',”‘ I wks told: “The bar doesn’t open until 11:00.” I went into a news shop to buy a paper. Had I had the same attitude any of the three times I’ve been married, one of them just might have worked out. Copyright 1987, Cowles Syndicate “All we have are yesterday’s papers,’ the clerk said. Lawrence Taylor, Oliver North and Hollywood Henderson: world class. The autobahn to the top of the intercollegiate Fortune 500 lies in mass marketing. Being world class, by definition, means being more like the rest of the world. Look how much A&M has grown since we let the opposite sex in and further allowed students of both sexes to join organizations devoted to something other than mechanized slaughter. The success associated with this trend is beyond dispute. Growth is the operative of success here, and don’t you forget it. More students and bigger bucks are what is at stake. By becoming more and more like the other world class universities, A&M will be more readily accepted by the entire country, get more publicity, sell more caps and T-shirts and get on national television more often. A broader market for A&M means a broader market for Aggies in general. And hey, that helps all of us. T here is one area, though, where a gap has developed between us and the other world class aspirants. We’ve got almost every important element they do at the other schools right here at A&M, except for one thing, and I’m not talking about a college of fine arts. I’m talking about something infinitely more crippling. The reason we missed this one, I think, is that we thought we had it covered already. When the Albritton bell tower went up two years ago, it seemed there was nothing left between A&M and world- class status. Well, we were wrong. Leaving off the digital time-face was a minor mistake compared to what I’m talking about. Think. Think hard about what’s missing from our bell tower. I’ll give you a hint t.u. By Mary-L] Staff V Along 1 hat’s right. A sniper. OurbelJ 1ms II" Mlipci l mil we getonew^thwestern New small | >< -t.id ics. What would it cosd’toric pueblo ruin al (ouplrof lives, that’s all. butstopc is gradually being think what it w i mid mean: nutp!: understood. nati-Mial. but wo, Id-wide exp0Sllltfl Ever y summe 0 r lo\as \.v\l l ni \ ei siiv. This is tx -‘y ears ’ A ' v . . ,. T , come to the site than a 11 a 11 o 11 a 1 < ha tn |)t .Aggie Ofe-. amount of material Fightin’ Texas Aggie Defense Fightin’ Texas Aggie Coach Jackie Sherrill! Fightin’ Texas Aggie MascotWl Fightin’ Texas Aggie Class of Nint Eighty Eight! Fightin’ T exas AggieSNIPEIJ Hell Outa t.u! Whoop! K. Lee Sullivan is a graduatestuit b u si n ess a dm in is tra lion. |ch season is consi | Houses, tools an been recovered, as mark” of the Mim tailed painted potte 11 “It's a reference sgical materials ai iocess all that stuf ything gets catalo inventoried,” he sa; Mail Call “We want to t, past life ways an< about the people a! “Once we begin tc