Josh Buckman’s Sports Brief on Gord Veldman
February 27, 2003
I am writing you in response to Josh Buckman’s recent article in the Tuesday, March 11th edition with regards to Gord Veldman qualifying
for NCAA’S.
I am an alumnus of not only the University but also the Men’s Swim Team. I am here to tell you that you need to start checking your facts; in regards to the statement that Gord will be the FIRST qualifier to make the NCAA meet since ’86&’88. In fact we not only had another male, but a female to make it in the past. Kicker Vencill and Brandi Carey both made it in recent years along with Gord(Not to take anything away from Gord my former teammate). I am not only upset about this but more then happy to point this mistake out to you. It seems to me that you guys at the Herald, and even people at the University have no respect for the swimming program of recent years. This includes the comment about this year’s team being the best in the schools history. Don’t you think this takes away from the ’99-2000 team? Which if you check your records went 12-0 and went 15-0 in ’98-’99. This team placed second at the NIC conference meet by less the 20 points in 99-2000. This was the same year that we qualified both Brandi Carey and Kicker Vencill for NCAA’S. Both of these atheltes were also named Male and Female athletes of the year at WKU, and NIC swimmers of the meet. Not only do Kicker and Brandi still remain school record holders, but so do several other team members from the ’99-2000 season. As a final tip for you guys, this was also the same year we qualified 7 swimmers for 2000 Olympic trials. On a side note the swim team has also had two other men and one female who qulified for the NCAA provisional time standard: distance swimmer Scott Cummins, breastroker Andrew Priest, and freestyler Sydney Mountford. I hope in future articles you so called REPORTERS will obtain all the facts before slapping together stories.
Respectfully Yours,
Alumni ’97-2001