Letters to the Editor: It isn't all about football. These Pac-12 teams deserve to stay put

Los Angeles Times Opinion
·1 min read
Los Angeles, CA - December 05: USC driver Carson Kranz takes a shot while guarded by Cal's Garrett Dunn in the first half at Spieker Aquatics Center on Sunday, Dec. 5, 2021 in Los Angeles, CA. (Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)
The UC Berkeley and USC men's water polo teams play in the 2021 NCAA championship in Los Angeles. UC Berkeley has won more men's water polo championships than any other school. (Steve Galluzzo / Los Angeles Times)

To the editor: I am in total agreement with former star college athlete Victoria Jackson's reasoning that the Pac-12 needs, and deserves, to be saved on a sport-by-sport basis as the home of the schools' non-football teams.

While I can understand that football programs' desire to follow the better financial fortunes that will come from leaving the Pac-12, dragging all the other sports into same new conference arrangements makes little sense.

In fact, taking these teams out of the Pac-12, conveniently located near other schools on the West Coast, puts them at a major disadvantage.

I’m surprised that most of the Pac-12 university presidents and athletic directors are going along with the current plans of leaving the conference in full, starting next year, for the cumbersome new alignments. And I suspect many longtime West Coast sports fans are as dismayed as I am.

Bill Hessell, Oak View

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To the editor: Jackson's idea seems so obviously correct. The non-football programs at USC and UCLA should not be forced to follow football out of the Pac-12 to the Big Ten Conference.

What is USC's and UCLA's argument against her idea?

Jon Allen, La Crescenta

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.