Lee Cataluna should issue a retraction. Lee Cataluna should apologize. Lee Cataluna should be fired.

After her Tuesday column criticizing June Jones' decision to leave UH for SMU, you would have thought Cataluna had endorsed Satan worship in public schools. Calls came in everywhere.

The reaction to her column has been swift and a lot of it negative because just about everyone in the state has been in a deep depression about Jones' anguished decision to leave a football program that had just finished the regular season undefeated and made a trip to the Sugar Bowl.

As someone who also made that trek to New Orleans, I understand the passion of 15,000 or so fans who made the trip and a million or so back home who were caught up in the greatest moment in Hawai'i sports history. Despite the performance of the team the night of Jan. 1, UH fans were loud and proud, cheering for their Warriors long after the game had ended and appeared in team colors the next day in airports throughout the country as they made their way home.

Less than a week later, Jones had departed and Athletics Director Herman Frazier had taken the fall. For all fans, it was demoralizing.

We dispatched a team of seven (reporters, photographers and videographer) to the big game and ramped up again when it looked like Jones really was going to go, so we invested heavily in the season and its aftermath.

Most of the coverage was very favorable to Jones until Cataluna's column came out basically accusing him of abandoning the state and his faithful fans. (Read the column at http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/lee_junejones) Many of the angry comments were fixed on her description of Jones as a "self-serving opportunist" and calling his agonizing over whether to stay or go "an act."

Several people called to demand that Cataluna be dismissed. A few said they were canceling their subscriptions. They accused her of being unprofessional and bitter and even questioned why I would allow such a column to appear in The Advertiser.

Lee Cataluna was hired here in 2000 and given a prominent column for the very reason that reaction has been so strong. She has a clear voice and an engaging writing style.

She also has a right to free speech, just as the 500-plus online readers who commented on her column are entitled to free speech. Many of those comments were not kind to her but there they sat for days for all to see. A surprising number of readers agreed with her, and the debate that ensued — though nasty at times — showed that not everyone is of the same opinion.

Some readers said Cataluna didn't get her facts straight, but they confuse fact with opinion. Nobody truly knows whether June Jones left Hawai'i for the money, because of Frazier, because of the lack of funding for his program or because he was just plain burned out and needed a fresh start.

In his e-mail to Frazier, he said "as I have said to you before it is not about money with me but this time ... see this as my last contract ... but it is not the only factor." He also says that if he had received the latest "generous" offer before SMU made its offer after the 2007 season, he would have signed it.

Columnists with strong voices like Cataluna elicit two responses: if you agree with them, you feel as if they are speaking for you, and if you don't agree, you slam down the paper and swear you'll never read it again. There's not much in between.

The reason we have columnists is that they offer a unique perspective of local or world events and quite often, those perspectives buck the tide of popular opinion. In that respect, Cataluna did her job and she did it well. Disagree with her all you want but respect her right to an alternative point of view.