MAILBAG:

I know Steve Smith is freelancing these days so I can’t communicate directly to him, but I would like to comment on his column in the Daily Pilot (“Fouls at the football game,” Dec. 9).

I agree with the principle of the article but take exception with the implication that UCLA fans are the only ones who are rude, obscene and obnoxious. If he had left it in generic terms, it would have gotten the intended point across.

I am in the UCLA Alumni Band, class of 1957, and have seen the same behavior from the other side. A guest of one of our members, sitting in our section, was from the other school and was just as obnoxious two years ago as in the example in Smith’s column — so much so that the band has made it policy that tickets will not be made available to anyone from USC again. That was the game that USC lost. It seems that behavior is getting worse by the years. What has happened to good sportsmanship?

We have good friends who have UCLA season tickets and were so intimidated and insulted at the Coliseum five years ago that they vowed never to go to another USC game there again.

We have also had a UCLA fan — not a band member and not supposed to be sitting in the section — be almost as obnoxious as in the column in regard to the Alumni Band’s seating section at the Rose Bowl. So I agree it is bad both ways. I just object to the implication that it is one-sided.

Paul Hill

Costa Mesa

Photo reminiscent of Michelangelo

Kent Treptow’s talented eye has done it again! His back-lit photograph (“Pier protection,” Dec. 10) creates a striking image, framing the bright sky and sea in the background and silhouetting the vertical pier supports and the workers maintaining them.

The man on the ladder could be a model for Michelangelo’s David — did Treptow have that allusion in mind? My thanks to Treptow for the image, and to the Daily Pilot for featuring it.

Eleanor Egan

Costa Mesa