Crazy assumptions? Yes. Credible? No.

Sometimes opinion pieces should stay in the Opinion section, something The Bulletin's sports editor, Scott Krieger, should learn.

I have to admit, my perspective of Krieger's "Marlin wrestling? Yes. Distance running? No." article in last week's Bulletin was skewed before I had a chance to read the article. I'm friends with several Zag athletes and the article had all of them buzzing last Thursday afternoon.  Needless to say, they were not happy with some of the claims made by Kreiger. I grabbed a copy of the paper as soon as I could to read for myself what all the hype was about, and I have to admit, the article even made me cringe.

For those of you who missed it, Krieger took it upon himself to distinguish the real sports from the posers, claiming events like distance running and synchronized swimming are not sports, but marlin wrestling is.  Without going too in depth, you may already see some flaws in his argument.

There are a few things I'd like to address in this article that really grind my gears. The first being, I don't agree with half of the claims made by Kreiger.  To make the argument that long distance running isn't a sport is absurd.  I have to admit, it isn't the most strategic sport (although pacing techniques come in pretty handy I hear) but it requires extreme athleticism to compete and achieve greatness as a runner.  Yes, most people can run — but I promise Mr. Krieger couldn't make it around a racetrack without being lapped by my roommate, who competes in cross country and track at Gonzaga.  Is she an athlete? Yes. Did Mr. Krieger speak out of turn and make a bizarre and wrong assumption? Yes.

The second thing that irked me about this article is that Mr. Krieger felt that he had the expertise and authority to make such sporting assumptions and place them in the Bulletin's Sports section as the Sports section editor.  Maybe I would be more comfortable with these claims if he was a professional athlete in all the sports he took a stab at, or if he was some sort of Olympic judge.  Unfortunately, neither of those are true, and he is merely the sports editor for the paper.  Will his article in The Bulletin lead me to discredit any of his future articles in the paper about sports? Yes. Am I the only one who feels that way? No.

The last point I have is strictly opinion, and please correct me if I'm wrong (this is the Opinion section, right? Or should this appear in the Sports section, too?).  While reading through Krieger's article, I took a good look at his picture plastered to his article.  Looking at the charming, cheshire cat grin on his face, I couldn't help but wonder what kind of sports Mr. Krieger might be involved in.  Thanks to the good people at Facebook, I was able to do a little research of my own.  Oddly enough, it turns out Krieger is an avid fisher (as previously admitted in his article), rugby player and skier.  Is it a coincidence that his article highlights fishing, rugby and skiing? No.

The criticism and critique could continue for days about this article that ruffled so many feathers for Gonzaga students — athletes and nonathletes alike.  Regardless, cross country will remain a D1 sport at Gonzaga, and marlin wrestling will have to wait a little longer to become a recognized collegiate sport for the WCC.  Until then, I'll wait to hear from Krieger concerning when he's available to challenge my roommate to a 5k race. n

Kassandra Sadlek is a senior.