19TH HOLE: The readers take over
THE GIFT OF GIVING
Sirs:
Too few are of the unselfish quality of Jack Twyman, and to those few may I offer congratulations (A Brave Man and a Good Friend; SI, Feb. 1). Maurice Stokes's story, as well as that of Roy Campanella and others, brings to light the need for starting a fund for athletes permanently injured during their careers. If such a fund can be started, I would like to contribute to it.
If such a fund is feasible, I would gladly give time to the organization and movement of the fund.
PEYTON A. CRAMER
Ridgewood, N.J.
Sirs:
Your article about Maurice Stokes was marvelous. It was informative, and it touched my heart. He is truly a brave man and I admire Jack Twyman very much for all he is doing for Maurice. Do I just send my contribution to Maurice Stokes in care of Christ Hospital, Cincinnati, Ohio?
RUSSELL BROWN
Salem, Ind.
•Right.—ED.
Sirs:
This dollar is for Maurice, and God help him.
WILLIS BROWN
New York City
Sirs:
A special Sportsman of the Year award should be given to Jack Twyman.
MIKE GILLIVAN
Orinda, Calif.
Sirs:
Until your Feb. 1 issue of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED I had always felt that Henri Cartier-Bresson was the greatest living photographer.
But not after seeing the way in which Photographer Art Shay handled the story of Maurice Stokes. The pictures should be hung in a Hall of Fame for unforgettable photographs.
VERNA TRESTRAIL
Leesburg, Ind.
EMBARRASSING JIM McGREGOR
Sirs:
I was happy to read Jim McGregor's comments concerning the AAU's action against the Swedish basketball team (19TH HOLE, Feb. 1). I would like to correct your editor's note stating Jim was coach at Whittier College.
Jim served his college basketball mentor's term at Whitworth College, a 1,300-student Presbyterian institution in Spokane. His outstanding success there so embarrassed that school's administration that they encouraged Jim's resignation because of his "overemphasis." Biggest contributor to McGregor's Whitworth achievements was 6-foot-10 Phil Jordan, now a star with Detroit in the NBA.
McGregor's efforts as a "roving basketball evangelist" since leaving Whitworth have resulted in the presence of some tall and talented Europeans in the basketball uniforms of Pacific Northwest colleges. His most noted import was 7-foot-3 Jean Claude LeFebvre, who starred at Spokane's Gonzaga University for two seasons before returning to his native France. Gonzaga currently sports two new McGregor imports, 7-foot George Trontzos of Greece and 6-foot-8 Hans Albertsson of Sweden. McGregor, now coaching an entry in the Portland, Ore. AAU (yes, AAU!) major league, has also contributed 6-foot-5 Swede Bert Lundmark to the Lewis & Clark College varsity.
Jim is personally responsible for much of the current basketball enthusiasm in Europe, and is one of the game's most vocal proponents. Your readers can expect to hear more from this enthusiast, now back in his native Portland.
FRED DELKIN
Portland, Ore.
$20,000 PUSH-UP
Sirs:
I read with interest and astonishment in your small article on Stan The Man Musial ("Tune-ups and Tryouts," WONDERFUL WORLD, Jan. 25) that the Duke of Donora was able to master only four push-ups in beginning training for the coming baseball season.
Later I read that Musial had taken a pay cut, and was to receive approximately $80,000 in 1960.
Now I ask you, what other sports figure, home or abroad, can boast of a salary of $20,000 per push-up? But he's worth every penny of it—and more.
FRED G. VOGEL
Lake Forest, Ill.
ALL THIS AND BASKETBALL TOO
Sirs:
"Snatched from the Jaws of Basketball" (WONDERFUL WORLD, Feb. 1)—but not quite. Lest your readers be misinformed, Beaver Dam and other Long Island ice hockey centers have not forsaken basketball.
Since 1957 (when the Beaver Dam junior hockey division was organized), the East Woods School, in the heart of the hockey-happy North Shore, has won 24 basketball games and lost only four, under onetime University of Rhode Island basketball coach Robert (Red) Haire. Many of the boys who chase ice hockey pucks at Beaver Dam and other rinks on their weekends have helped East Woods School compile its enviable basketball record on school days.
FRANK L. ANDREWS
Locust Valley, N.Y.
CARS: FOND MEMORIES
Sirs:
The Forgotten Fun of Driving (SI, Feb. 1) by A. W. Miller brought back fond memories of my early days of driving in my first—and best—car. It was a 1930 Model A Ford, and for the money it was about the finest and brightest hunk of machinery ever built to carry man in comfort and safety!
In the early '30s you could get out and drive without meeting other cars every two seconds, and driving then was a pleasure never to be forgotten. It used to really snow, back then, and winter driving was a cinch in my Model A. I could plow through big snowdrifts and drive along unplowed streets without a whimper in her, while today my automatic '58 car can't climb through two inches of snow with snow tires!
It really is a shame that the Ford Motor Company ever gave up on the Model A, for today's compact cars are very disappointing because they all lack the luster of a car built for a single man to drive alone—free and contented.
Long live the Model A, the best American car ever made to this day!
FRED CHAPELLE
Waltham, Mass.
Sirs:
I owned a 1928 Model A roadster in 1956, and driving it was every bit as much fun as A. W. Miller maintains.
A feature which endeared the car to a thin-walleted teen-ager was its economy. A week's driving around town (with as many as 13 companions clinging precariously to various seats, running boards and handholds) cost $2. A nearby junkyard provided a cylinder head ($5), a transmission ($15) and all the 21-inch treadless tires I could use at 50¢ each. A new exhaust muffler-tailpipe assembly cost $8.
The Model A truly rates as a masterpiece of automotive engineering and design.
DAVID T. DEAN
Annapolis, Md.
Sirs:
As a Model A Ford fan and owner, I thought you would be interested in this picture of my 1930 Model A Ford town car, one of 63 manufactured that year. It has been completely restored and, needless to say, it is my pride and joy. I am my own ununiformed chauffeur.
ANNE C. TAYLOR
New Haven, Conn.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Sirs:
Please let me explain that although I was a qualified artillery instrument sergeant, I was so nearsighted (—5 and—7 diopters) that when we entered World War I, I was rejected for enlistment by every combat service in the U.S. It took me a whole month to find, in the U.S.A. Ambulance Service, a doctor who knew less about eye examinations than I did. This explanation was lost from my article [The Forgotten Fun of Driving].
A. W. MILLER
New York City
DESIRABLE WEIGHTS
Sirs:
You stated that Billy Cannon weighs a "rock-hard 205 pounds" at 6 feet, 1 inch (SI, Jan. 4), which brings up something that has been bothering me. According to your previously published weight chart (SI, Nov. 2), that "rock-hard" specimen is overweight and so is almost every other football player in the country. How can this be?
J. A. RAGAN
Beverly Hills, Calif.
•The weight-for-height-and-age chart previously published was compiled for the "average" man and woman. Now Metropolitan Life's actuaries have prepared charts showing the "desirable" weight for men and women of small, medium and large frames (see right). Although actuaries caution that "individuals differ in various respects, such as chest breadth, width of hips, muscularity and other factors affecting desirable weight," Cannon is 17 pounds over.—ED.
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PHOTO
MODEL A TOWN CAR
