Track team member writes to Ayers about team cuts

My fellow teammates and I are up against a formidable force in our fight to reestablish our team on this wonderful campus.

With respect to myself, I have not once on this long, hard journey entertained the idea of accommodation. I will not back down and lick the wounds you inflicted. President Ayers, I refuse to be deceived by your artful rhetoric and declarations, nor shall I take a back seat as you proclaim falsehoods to my fellow peers, my professors and those across the nation.

Instead, I stand in the open to speak out in manly terms. I hereby proclaim that the manner in which you and a select number of board members conducted yourselves is deplorable. It stands in stark contrast to the ideals and values driven into the student body from the day they step foot on this campus.

If you indeed read this, Dr. Ayers, I wish to tell you that this team has had a long and arduous journey; one that has had no light at the end of the tunnel. We have sought answers, solutions and reconciliation by honorable means from the very beginning and continue to do so.

These attempts by us and those on our behalf have proved to be futile as letter after letter, discourse after discourse, article after article falls upon deaf ears. We have done all that could be expected from college students and then some. That is what makes us Spiders.

The spirit of honor, truth and responsibility has been instilled too deeply within us by your administration to simply submit to a lapse in integrity on your behalf. Our campaign to reinstate is one of noble ambitions.

Your actions as the figurehead of my school are unnatural, unjust and shall not unnerve the values I was brought up to live out.

My father taught me from a young age to know what I believe and why I believe it. I know what I believe, sir, and why I believe it. Do you?

There is a great discrepancy between what you preach and what you do, so I urge you to examine your motives, your actions and your discourse. It is my hope that you listen to these words. They reflect the sentiments of the family I have found here on the team, in the classroom and among my peers. They ring clear as a bright September day.

Robert E. Lee said, "I think it better to do right, even if we suffer in so doing, than to incur the reproach of our consciences and posterity."

I urge you to heed these words of wisdom and listen to the pulse of this university. If you simply open your ears, you will hear the sound of honor and integrity ringing in the hearts of the students, faculty and alumni. I can only hope to hear those values ringing from yours.