I have a unique appreciation for the value of books. As long as I can remember, my family has collected them. Bookshelves are present in every room in my house. When we last attempted a count, we gave up in the neighborhood of 5,000.

It may be slightly surprising, then, that I do not condemn the transformation of Houston's Lamar High School's library to get rid of books in order to add a coffee shop and e-books. Needless to say, this was not the most popular move. One of the more critical articles in the Houston Press used words such as "appalling," "stupid" and "terrible."

While it is always great to have civil dialogue on the issue of religion, I took some objection to the recent letter to the editor about the merits of creationism as a field of study. The letter said many respected scientists worldwide have argued with scientific data for the creationist theory.

Those three main points 8212; that many scientists believe in creationism, that scientists use scientific data to defend creationism, and that creationism is a theory 8212; are all wrong.

There are a lot of reasons to believe that the Dallas Mavericks are NBA contenders.

The offense is completely operating with no hiccups. In the past month, the Mavericks have scored fewer than 100 points only twice. Over the course of those 30 days, Dallas has averaged 104 points a game and has gone 13-1.

With the career resurgence of Peja Stojakovic and the reappearance of Rodrigue Beaubois, the Mavericks' offense is only getting stronger as they move down the stretch. Dirk Nowitzki continues to put up MVP-like numbers, and the Dallas bench is exceptionally deep.

It isn't quite the Iron Skillet Bowl, but it could called the Iron Skillet Match: The No. 52 TCU women's tennis team will make the trip down Interstate 30 to face the university's private school rival, No. 29 Southern Methodist University.

TCU (1-2) dropped its last match to Texas A&M, 6-1, Feb. 12 at College Station.

"We had a lot of opportunities early in the match," TCU head tennis coach Dave Borelli said in a TCU Athletics release after the loss to the Aggies. "It's going to be tough all year. We've got a tough schedule and we're going to keep playing good teams."

This weekend was one full of record-setting events thanks to the dedication and support of Horned Frog fans.

On Friday night, the baseball single-game attendance record was easily surpassed as 6,099 fans attended the game, according to gofrogs.com. This, coupled with the fact that the average attendance during last season was less than 3,200 fans, really begins to show the magnitude the accomplishment.

The TCU baseball team dropped to No. 3 in the most recent Collegiate Baseball rankings. TCU, previously ranked No. 1 in the preseason poll, lost to Kansas, 4-3, in extra innings Sunday, which stopped the Frogs' bid for a series sweep of the Jayhawks. Here is a list of the top-10 teams in Division I college baseball as of Feb. 21:

Rank School (Record) Points Previous

1. Florida (3-0) 495 2

2. UCLA (3-0) 494 3

3. Texas Christian (2-1) 492 1

4. Vanderbilt (4-0) 490 5

5. Oklahoma (4-0) 489 6

6. Clemson (2-1) 484 4

7. Texas (3-1) 481 7