By Cory Parks

Your recent article on Liam Ezekiel (“LB faces uphill battle in pros,” May 4) was very interesting and had a lot of accurate facts about I-AA players in the National Football League. However, I totally disagree with the belief that our athletes play ‘horrible football’ as was stated. I feel as though you disrespected not only the Northeastern football program but also the players themselves. Athletes on our team not only work hard to be the best, but we work hard to be winners. We work hard to hopefully one day become the next Jerry Rice (arguably the greatest football player of all time) or Walter Payton (arguably the greatest running back of all time), both I-AA alum. Maybe I-AA football doesn’t get the full respect of Division I-A programs, but please take into consideration that there are hundreds of I-AA players that pass on the I-A experience including myself and at least 20 of my teammates. Does it make me a worse athlete because in 2002, I chose Northeastern, a program on the rise, than a respectable SEC contender in Arkansas and eventual National Champion LSU? Do I lose skill if I decided to go to a place that I felt welcome over the 20 other schools that offered me scholarships? I respect your opinions and beliefs but I believe downsizing our program to ‘high school football in Alaska’ is very troubling. Rather than bash the program, you could spread the word on our progress, and just maybe, our fan support will increase. We are progressing as a team and building a family.

I also feel that an incident that occurred in the beginning of November shouldn’t be in the front page of the Sports section in May. Let’s take a different look at that situation. Let’s not look at the Liam Ezekiel side but the Miro Kesic (Northeastern’s kicker) side. It was already a tough situation for Miro, but to be honest I don’t think every time he looks in the paper he should be reminded of it. It is an incident that should remain in the past, forgotten, so the football program can continue to progress and reach their goal as Atlantic 10 and National Champions. I believe together we can get more support for not only football, but also all of Northeastern athletics.

— Cory Parks is a middler double major in African American studies and history. He is also a member of the Northeastern football team.