MEMO from the publisher

It's great," Bill Corum said, "and we're proud to have it." Mr. Corum was thanking SPORTS ILLUSTRATED for the 10-foot-long original of Roy Doty's drawing of the grandstand at Churchill Downs (SI, April 28), now on permanent display there.

His words brought to mind some others by Managing Editor Sidney James. In a staff memorandum James recently wrote:

"Art Director Jerry Snyder and his department have developed a variety of approaches to the problem of functional illustration—by which I mean illustration which brings the story to the reader.

"There were lately in successive weeks Doty's continuous strip of the Churchill Downs grandstand and the drawing by Jack Kunz of the controversial Los Angeles Coliseum (SI, May 5). With different styles and perspectives, both aimed to clarify parts of the sports scene which were of primary interest. And I like to think they both succeeded.*

"Other subjects regularly bring other artistic approaches: for instance, the instructional drawings by Tony Ravielli and Robert Riger in our series on Big League Secrets and the descriptive drawings by Ray Pioch of the revolutionary jet racing boats (SI, May 5).

"In all, Snyder chooses from an imposing list of more than 35 artists to fill our needs. And each continues to make important contributions to sports journalism."

Editor James, of course, was writing about graphic illustration. But there is the art of the camera, too, in which SPORTS ILLUSTRATED has also made advances. This issue is a good place to mention one of them. For John Zimmerman's pictures of Herb Score in our SPECTACLE are a direct descendant of a color technique pioneered by SPORTS ILLUSTRATED and Photographer Mark Kauffman, using a long lens on a sequence camera. In fact, our first purchase, months before our first issue, was the equipment to develop this technique.

It's another example of how SPORTS ILLUSTRATED has tried, through illustration, to "bring the story to the reader," and Messrs. James, Snyder, Zimmerman and all the rest, you may be sure, will keep on trying.

* In the May 4 New York Herald Tribune writer Tommy Holmes testified to the success of one. "Nothing so far," he said, "has illustrated the ridiculous (for baseball) contour of the Coliseum quite as well as the diagram in SPORTS ILLUSTRATED."

ILLUSTRATION

SNYDER BY SNYDER