At ETSU, it seems the root of the word “locker” has gone entirely out the window, along with a tidy haul of stolen cash.
In recent weeks, an all too common story circulated throughout Memorial Center, Brooks Gym, Public Safety and the campuses in general. Money is disappearing from within gym lockers.
Considering all students must take two credit hours in physical education courses to graduate, this problem is indeed pervasive.
A common technique the thief or thieves use is to entirely dislodge the padlock from the metal frame of the locker, leaving a gaping hole and easy access to the contents inside.
Surely, the sound of a padlock being ripped cleanly from a wire locker would be resonant, but here a rhetorical question is raised: If a lock is broken and no one is in the locker room to hear it, does it really make a sound?
Indubitably, the sound, whether existent or not, won’t serve as an aid in ending these crimes unless there is someone on duty in the dressing rooms to listen.
Whether it be someone from the department of physical education, public safety, gymnasium staff or any other body, there should be a guard in these rooms against what would appear to be preventable thefts.
During the latest incident, the perpetrators took only cash from inside wallets. But what if they had taken the entire wallets? Or clothes or other belongings? They were all there for the taking. The victims here are relatively lucky.
True, ETSU is a comparatively safe campus, safer than about two-thirds of the nation’s other college environments, according to studies.
If simple steps are taken, this university can improve upon an already commendable record. If not, ETSU is leaving the locker doors wide open to an attack far more heartbreaking than the one your opponent launched against you in tennis class.