Letters To The Editor

No Rockne, Jesse

Re: MidWeek‘s cover story on the Hawaii NFL Legends.

There are two local boys, off the top of my head, who were left off of the inaugural list of Hawaii NFL Legends: Rockne Freitas of the Detroit Lions and Jesse Sapolu, four-time Super Bowl champ with the San Francisco 49ers.

This reminds me of a similar committee that Hawaii Pacific University put together. They left Tony Sellitto off the inaugural inductees into the HPU Sports Hall of Fame – the only college basketball coach in the state of Hawaii to ever win a national championship.

I would love to have been a fly on the wall when these decisions were made.

Congratulations to all the other honorees, but any true sports-minded individual who follows sports in Hawaii (including the honorees, I’d bet) would never have left Rockne and Jesse off the list. Committee members just slapped these two fine, humble athletes in the face.

Robert Martin
Honolulu

Leaving out Russ

It puzzles me that the selection committee did not include “All-World Tight End” Russ Francis in the inaugural Hawaii NFL Legends.

Francis Hirashiki
Pearl City

A must-read

Wow, what a fantastic cover story on Wally Yonamine by Don Chapman – wonderful story about a great guy who touched many lives. I especially was touched by the tale about Wally and his brother, because the plantation family was so poor, making their own “football” from a tin can and newspapers. This story should be mandatory reading in Hawaii schools.

James Tamura
Honolulu

Glad to be old

Bob Jones asks an excellent question in his column “How Many People Can Oahu Handle?”

And looking at the accompanying chart on projected population increases for different parts of the island, all I can says is I’m glad I’m old and won’t be around to see what our political and business leaders are allowing our beautiful island to become.

Edith Lee
Honolulu

End ‘assaults’

Writers of the Constitution would no doubt roll over in their graves if they ever dreamed of even the possibility of “assault” weapons being involved in slaughtering countless innocent victims in just seconds.

In those days, “arms” meant for hunting and protecting. I am 83 and find it so difficult to see why we cannot do away with assault weapons, at least. Something has to be done!

Pauline Hartman
Ewa Beach

Send your letters to dchapman@midweek.com.