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SCORECARD
THE ROYAL PHILOSOPHY
Despite what they think of themselves—and they seldom think of anything else—college football coaches generally are not considered philosophical or intellectual giants. It was refreshing the other day, therefore, to hear one of them, Darrell Royal of the University of Texas, make some good, common sense about coaching. Royal, who completes the second year of a 10-year contract with Texas when the Longhorns meet Mississippi in the Cotton Bowl, draws $17,500 a year and was recently named Coach of the Year by the Football Writers' Association.
"I'm the world's biggest coward," he said. "I run scared all the time. I agree with Eisenhower when he said just before the election, 'The opposition always looks 14 feet tall.' But coaching is largely a matter of dealing with people and it's a new world every day. I never feel like I'm going to work when I get up in the morning. It's a wonderful profession when you can earn a living and not feel like you're working to do it.
"The only thing that disturbs me about my profession is the fact that people give you too much credit when you win and too much hell when you lose. I'll be the same person and do the same things when we lose, but people won't believe me. I won't change, but the people will."
We commend Royal's statement and hope it will be seen by every coach, college president and overzealous alumnus in the land.
LA DOLCE VITA
Two weeks ago William Patrick Perry of San Francisco celebrated his 109th birthday with a night on the town at Lake Tahoe, Calif. He spent a fine evening playing the gambling tables, ogling the girls and helping himself to an occasional snort. It is Perry's theory that girls, whisky and gambling increase one's longevity. For physical-fitness buffs and for the enlightenment of whatever prudes may be within earshot, we offer Mr. Perry's advice: "I won't say that I win a lot or lose a lot when I gamble, but I have a hell of a good time, win or lose. To live as long as I have, I recommend that you gamble, grab every girl in sight and never turn down a drink."
GOODBY, CHARLIE
The other day Charles Comiskey II stood in front of a battery of microphones in Chicago and announced that he had sold his 46% interest in the White Sox to a group of 11 young Chicago business and professional men for an estimated $3.5 million. Thus, for the first time in 60 years, the White Sox are without a Comiskey in any sort of control.
In recent years the White Sox have made as many headlines in court as on the ball field. Young Comiskey became involved in a long and bitter stock fight with his sister, Dorothy, which ended when she sold her controlling interest (54%) to a syndicate headed by Bill Veeck in 1959. Charles Comiskey couldn't get along with Veeck either, and the fans and the team both suffered.
The new combine has an average age of 36, surprisingly young for baseball. (The oldest member is 41, the youngest 31.) We hope that these young men can get together with the majority owner, 47-year-old Arthur Allyn Jr., who bought Veeck out in June, and bring to Chicago some young, forward-looking ideas. Chicago can use them and, most certainly, so can all of baseball.
THOSE BLACK, BLACK HILLS
The Colorado School of Mines basketball team boarded a bus at Golden, Colo. the other day and traveled 424 miles to play Black Hills Teachers College at Spearfish, S. Dak., 190 miles northwest of Wounded Knee and 107 miles south of Camp Crook. Once inside the Black Hills gym, the Colorado team started getting in trouble with the referees. At the end of regulation time, the 10 Orediggers had been socked with 40 personal fouls (out of 50 possible), but the game was tied 56-56. At the end of the first five-minute overtime Black Hills and CSM were still tied 62-62; at the end of the second overtime period the teams were deadlocked at 66-66. Midway through the third overtime the referees called another foul, and CSM finished that period with four men, but still held matters to 70-70. In the fourth overtime period the referees whistled two more CSM players out of the game, and for the final two minutes two CSM players played against five from Black Hills. Final score: Black Hills 80, CSM 79.
LOSER
The United States Military Academy recently fired its head football coach, Dale Hall. The reason was simple: under Hall, Army couldn't beat Navy. To old generals and young lieutenants, beating Navy is terribly important. The old generals have not yet named a successor but they have made their position clear. Young coaches who lose to Navy never die, but they sure fade away.
THE MEAT HUNTERS
The ways of some hunters are wondrous strange, and not merely in the New World. We learn of the existence in Austria of the Vienna Central Cemetery shooting club, a group of sportsmen devoted to potting hares, pheasants and partridges in—you guessed it—the Central Cemetery of Vienna. Sighting happily over the graves of Brahms, Beethoven, Gluck, Schubert, Strauss and other departed dignitaries, club members have been known to knock off as many as 50 hares a day.
From Switzerland comes even more discouraging news of the annual Lake Constance Belchen battle. The Belchen is an inedible, unsporting moor hen that can be killed by a half-witted child. The brave Belchen hunters slither through the reeds of the lake and into the roosting areas. There they wait until sunup—legal hunting time. But the first shots always ring out five minutes before legal time, fired by naturalists trying to frighten the birds to safety. Canvasbacks and mallards, no dullards, swarm into the air and out of range. But the dim-witted Belchen hang around their roosts, there to be shot, clubbed and throttled, while the naturalists race home to write letters to the editor.
THE PRIZE IS RIGHT
The Bathurst Turf Club of New South Wales has come up with a new wrinkle in prizes for Thoroughbred horse racing. It has announced that the lucky lady horse who wins the club's race for fillies and mares on February 24 will be treated to a free stud service by Tulloch, the Australian horse who won $247,776 in stakes before his recent retirement. Such individual attention from Tulloch usually costs $1,180.
Gordon Bourke, secretary of the club, explained: "We needed a gimmick and decided to offer something a bit different from the usual run of prizes." We can't think of a better gimmick at the moment, though we do feel it had better be confined to racing.
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
The consensus of preseason basketball polls was that Wake Forest should finish this season as the nation's third best team, behind Ohio State and Cincinnati. The season had hardly begun when Wake Forest had a chance to elevate itself one notch further by defeating Ohio State. But Ohio State clobbered them. Then Wake Forest traveled to Gainesville, Fla. to play the University of Florida, which promptly won an upset 71-65 victory. The Wake Forest student body studied the matter and decided that Coach Bones McKinney was doing an excellent job. So they hanged the team in effigy.
THE INSIDE TRACK
•Louisville track officials are trying to get the AAU to move its annual Madison Square Garden indoor championship track meet to Louisville's 14,550-seat Freedom Hall.
•The Big Ten is moving slowly toward a mandatory eight-game round-robin football schedule within its own league. Behind the trend are faculty representatives who are determined to curtail over-emphasis. Good bet: the plan will be in effect for the 1967 season.
•If Joe Kuharich quits Notre Dame to coach the pro Chicago Bears there's a good chance that Michigan State Coach Duffy Daugherty will replace him.
•The University of Maryland may shortly break the Atlantic Coast Conference's color line by recruiting a Negro basketball player. Maryland alumni are weary of seeing the best local players going to schools in other sections of the country.
SHIPS THAT PASS
Catholic High School of Texarkana, Texas sent its basketball team to Hugo, Okla., 125 miles away, for a game with Hugo High. En route, they passed the Hugo team headed for Texarkana for the same game. A mistake in a printed schedule caused the mix-up.
ILLUSTRATION
THEY SAID IT
•G. Robert Nail; Houston bridge expert, after playing eight hours a day for 16 consecutive days in national tournaments: "It took a lot of sleeping pills to get through this tournament; if I hadn't taken them, I would have had to get up every day before I even went to sleep."
•Edwin A. McDonald Jr., assistant coach of the Los Angeles Jets of the American Basketball League: "Basketball is a game of chance. You look up at the scoreboard and see who is ahead when the gun is fired. That's the intent of the game. It's dice with hoops, to be perfectly frank."
•Harold Groves of Groves Archery Corp., Albuquerque, on receipt of an order for one of his bows from Katanga Province: "I sure hope this customer is on our side."
•Richard Cardinal Cushing, at the annual Boston police ball: "Gambling exists everywhere. And no one can deny it. The United States Army wouldn't be a sufficient law enforcement body to stop people from gambling. In my theology, gambling is not a sin any more than to take a glass of beer or of hard liquor is a sin. It's the abuse that makes gambling evil or drinking intoxicating liquors evil."
•Terry Downes, replying to Promoter Sam Silverman's suggestion that Downes go through with his return fight with Paul Pender in Boston: "What! Me go to an Irish city like Boston to defend my title on St. Patrick's night—with the judges and referee all named Kelly, Kelly and Kelly!"
