Letter to the Editor: Men’s soccer team’s strong defense

Dear Editor:

It is the job of the journalist to report the facts accurately. Lately, it seems to be the focus of The Rider News to report on our soccer team inaccurately. For most of the season, you have taken shots at us—and deservedly so, being that we struggled for most of the year. In one instance, however, you were terribly wrong.

On Oct. 27, the men’s soccer team played its final home game of the year. We played against the 12th-ranked team in the country, Fairfield. For starters, it was senior day. Three of our seniors played their final home game on our field. Were they given an article to wish them well or summarize the success they achieved over four years? No!

Instead, they were greeted by what was the most appalling article I have ever read. Our team not only played as a team that cold blustery day, but we took it to the 12th-ranked team in the country, and with a little luck we would have scored in the 120 minutes we fought through. If you want to criticize us, you do so for losing 2-1 to Canisius, a game we should have won, not for tying a team at the top of the conference.

This is not the first time a team was crucified for having a good day, and it won’t be the last. It is hard to understand how writers can form opinions about a team’s season when the only thing you know about the team is whether they won or lost the game. Maybe you would write better articles if you just didn’t come to the games and wrote an article based on what the team says to you. I hope you realize that with all your talk about having pride in the school, you discourage people from coming to the games by writing articles similar to the one wrote about the soccer team.

It was the position of The Rider News that Rider’s deficient efforts were the cause for the tie. The only thing deficient about what happened on that day was the article that followed.

As an executive editor of the paper, I would expect an accurate account of what happened in the match. Instead, what you did was twist the words around given to you by our players voluntarily and tried to make us out to be negligent. You are negligent about the game of soccer. If you weren’t, you would have known better than to sit right next to the “soccer moms who were perplexed by their sons’ performances.”

Your negligence was evident in the article you wrote. “A lack of teamwork was evident on the field during the second half when junior Scot Fanning tried to set a post for junior Phil Bedrin,” said Kamni Khan, executive editor. “It was yet another attempt to take the lead since Bedrin was out of the box.” That quote has nothing to do with the game of soccer. As a soccer player, I have no idea what you are saying, let alone what readers must be trying to think. Soccer is not football nor is it basketball. We do not run post patterns nor do we try to get people the ball in the low post. The game is not played that way.

I suggest that if you intend to write about us in the future, you read up on the game or sit behind the bench, because you may learn something. Maybe then I will not be so “perplexed” to read an article misrepresenting our team.

Rob Danbury

Midfielder

Junior, Communication major