I have been keeping track of the fallout from the CMU Lacrosse 52-0 defeat of Johnson and Wales and would like to respond to your April 15th editorial, “The Modern Paradox: Success Requires Apology.”
I would like to first acknowledge that I am a CMU graduate and spent the better part of three years on the lacrosse team. I am proud to know many of the coaches and players on a personal level and do not intend this response to act as a condemnation of the programs’ collective character nor disparage the name of the Criterion.
However, “The Modern Paradox” overreached, misrepresented, and oversimplified the narrative surrounding CMU’s 52-0 defeat of Johnson and Wales. Your editorial has turned a complex matter involving the growth of a fringe sport in Colorado, sportsmanship, and the perceived ills of contemporary society into an emotionally charged black-and-white issue where CMU Lacrosse is suddenly being wronged.
It is not so simple. And CMU Lacrosse is not the victim of its own success in this case.
Your article draws three conclusions with which I disagree.
First, it equates success with scoring 52 goals. Scoring a goal a minute against a school transitioning from NAIA to Division III with 18 players on its roster is not success or an achievement, it is cruel.
For a program coming off its first appearance in the DII national playoff, beating the breaks off a clearly inferior team is below CMU Lacrosse.
Second, your editorial summarizes CMU’s official apology as such, “sorry we were better.” No one was/is calling for CMU to apologize for being better than Johnson and Wales, and CMU’s apology reflects this. Read it again. The letter apologizes to those who love lacrosse; those who see it as a sport demanding respect and sportsmanship.
Third, your editorial equates the negative attention in which the romping engendered as “toddlers running the nursery.” This assumption is as unfounded as it is unprofessional, especially considering that you, unnamed author(s?), then go on to attribute this metaphor to society as a whole.
How stable the ground you stand on must be.
No longer living in the Grand Valley, I am not abreast of the entire conversation circling this unfortunate outcome. But I hardly think Tom Ryan’s scathing letter to the editor, which came from a former NCAA athlete familiar with youth coaching, is comparable to a toddler running the nursey.
Instead, I choose to see Ryan’s letter as an impassioned response to a lapse in sportsmanship from an informed stakeholder, just as I see your response as a well-meaning rebuttal in defense of your fellow students.
Ultimately, I am sorry this game was played in this manner, I am sorry Harrison got hurt by a vicious cheap shot, and I am sorry this became such a polarizing event.
It is time to move on. Might as well do so constructively. This was a complicated event from which we can all learn, let’s not make it a black and white, us vs. them.
Signed,
Tristan Purdy
