Editorial by David Hawpe

In the dressing room after his team’s victory over Ole Miss Saturday, coach Charlie Bradshaw said, tearfully, “Let me ask you… is it worth it?”

Certainly this is an appropriate time to ask that question. Now that three years of persistence have produced a dramatic victory, is it possible to weigh the prize gained in the educational balance.

Such an inquiry is meant to take nothing away from a tremendous effort on the part of the team and coach Bradshaw that led to the triumph. The problem lies in assigning a value to such a victory. We ask, then:

Is this victory worth the heartbreak and anguish suffered by those who found “total football” too much to endure?

Is it worth the loss of numerous fine athletes who might have profited by attending this university and who might have established proud records as alumni?

Is it worth the embarrassment of censure by the NCAA?

Is it worth not utilizing the talents of Negro athletes in order to be able to play Ole Miss?

Undoubtedly these will be unpopular questions, especially coming at a time such as this.

What is the substance of this success? It is simply this: a group of athletes recruited and trained to represent the university has defeated a group similarly trained by the University of Mississippi.

Yet moments after the final whistle blew, university students in Lexington — notably fraternity groups waving flags and causing traffic jams, with blaring horns producing counterpoint to the confusion — poured out their joy.

And why not? Were not the Mississippians ranked first among such university-affiliated groups throughout the nation?

A more important question is this: would students display such enthusiasm for other causes, including those which might provide a greater benefit to mankind?

The answer is that among too many students here, athletics rank higher on the scale of values than more intellectual matters which relate directly to the process called “education.”

A case in point occurred Sunday night at the Student Center. Some 100 students attached themselves to the television receiver on the first floor, waiting for coach Bradshaw’s program. After it was concluded, the Warren Commission Report was presented, as announced prior to Bradshaw’s broadcast. Only about 20 persons bothered to stay and hear portions of the official report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

We feel that something is very wrong in a system of values which leads thousands of students and fans to greet the football team at the airport, while the quieter, but vastly more significant, educational victories remain largely unsung.

Let us change the emphasis. Give football its due, yes. But we submit that “total football” may have more deficits than assets in its effect on our values.

Considering again its consequences, we are forced to echo coach Bradshaw’s question: “Is it worth it?”