Readers React: Ear-splitting Coliseum crowds for USC games? No thanks.

To the editor: I am presently a USC dad. I attended my first game at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum 50 years ago; I was there as recently as last Saturday’s football game between USC and Utah.

The idea of making the old barn “roar” to be more like modern stadiums, which retain fan screaming and cheering to create a deafening noise advantageous to the home team, is about as larcenous as the return of Pete Carroll, Lane Kiffin or the Raiders. We don’t need sound baffling, canopies, artificial roofs or anything. Plus, those field-level boxes that block the view of the peristyle side of the Coliseum should be condemned by the Los Angeles Architecture Commission.

Please don’t waste money on engineers and analysts to make the Coliseum unbearably loud. Headache-inducing noise, pounding rap music and not being able to hear your seatmate for three hours doesn’t bring you a championship — just ask the Dodgers.

Jeff Prescott, La Jolla

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To the editor: Let’s talk about the obvious: Exposure to high noise levels such as those at football games is a leading cause of permanent hearing loss (and associated disability), not to mention tinnitus (incessant ringing in the ears).

People with hearing loss have difficulty with communication. People with tinnitus can suffer from the unremitting ringing, even while trying to sleep.

These are not trivial problems. Noise exposure is the leading cause of acquired hearing loss, and much of what we describe as “age-related” hearing loss is the result of cumulative exposure to loud noise over a lifetime.

That USC would throw money at the “problem” of low noise levels during football games at the Coliseum is truly absurd.

Alison M. Grimes, Los Angeles

The writer, an audiologist, is director of audiology at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

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To the editor; Where were Athletic Director Pat Haden and his acoustical engineers between 2003 and 2005, when USC won 34 straight games (many of them at the Coliseum), one of the longest winning streaks in college football history?

If the university would spend more time hiring good coaches, that might solve the noise concern. It is sad that, instead, its renovation plan for the Coliseum is conceding that USC can never fill the house in the future.

Melanie Sherman, Granada Hills

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To the editor: USC has been using the Coliseum for its football games with great success over many years, and now there’s a problem?

There’s an old saying that goes, “A poor carpenter blames his tools.”

The university’s football team uses the Coliseum a few days a year for games, but the people who attend other events at the stadium may not appreciate sitting in an echo chamber.

Jim Dodds, Indian Wells

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