Reason for Being Makes It a Classic

I’m sure that the 40-plus people who volunteered hundreds of hours of their time to put on the 1991 L.A. Classic would love to have teams such as Duke, Kansas, Ohio State, UCLA and USC participate in the tournament (Nov. 26 Morning Briefing--”Not So Classic”). The purpose of the tournament is to “Play Ball for Literacy” and the benefactor is the PUENTE Learning Center, a learning group that currently helps nearly 1,000 adults and children in East Los Angeles. To hold a tournament with top-10 teams would greatly benefit this group, but to get the top teams takes one thing: money.

To bring in a tournament field like you mentioned would require hundreds of thousands of dollars in guarantees to those teams, and without a name sponsor for the Classic (i.e. Nissan L.A. Open), it is not possible.

As one of the above-mentioned volunteers, I think, especially considering the purpose of the tournament, that future mentions of the L.A. Classic should be positive and helpful to our cause and less derogatory.

JAMES R. EWING

Chairman, Team Relations

L.A. Classic