19TH HOLE: THE READERS TAKE OVER
THE BOYS
Sirs:
Your article on the Philadelphia Eagles (The Day the Boys Scared the Men, Dec. 18) will just about do it between me and SPORTS ILLUSTRATED.
Roy Terrell has no business calling a world championship team a bunch of "boys"! You just don't say things like this.
BILL STAPP
Boulder, Colo.
Sirs:
I was at that game and, unlike the people who knew all along that "the Giants were never in danger of losing," I considered the Eagles a better team that was robbed of a victory by some tough and disputable calls.
MICHAEL E. BRATMAN
Philadelphia
Sirs:
If those people in the green shirts were boys, I move that Roy ("Roy-boy") Terrell be appointed a committee of one to investigate the possibility of lowering the draft age to 12.
RICHARD BOND JR.
New Haven, Conn.
Sirs:
Stupid, foolish, incompetent, pathetic.
BILL ZAVRESA
Fairview, N.J.
Sirs:
The first account of the game which put it in its true perspective.
WILLYS K. SILVERS
Philadelphia
•Roy Terrell was not the only expert who thought the Eagles as a team played far beyond their capacities as individuals. In picking their 22-man All-Pro teams for the year both the AP and UPI found only one Eagle, Sonny Jurgensen, good enough to make the grade (five Giants made it).—ED.
ALL (MOST)-AMERICA
Sirs:
You say that All-America team selections are getting "curiouser" and cite Rutgers" Alex Kroll as a specific example (SCORECARD, Dec. 18).
I wonder if you noticed that in a league dominated by Rutgers the All-Conference team was dominated by players from Lehigh, Delaware, Bucknell and Lafayette. This would indicate that the coaches in the Middle Atlantic Conference who supposedly selected the team are either lousy judges or pretty poor coaches. With such an array of All-Conference material, they should have beaten Rutgers easily.
JIM VAN VLIET
Bethlehem, Pa.
Sirs:
At Rutgers football is a part of Rutgers, not Rutgers a part of football; the All-Americas they get deserve all the credit in the world for being able to make it at a college that is not highly publicized. Alex Kroll is indeed one of these men.
RICHARD W. HUSS
Interlaken, N.J.
Sirs:
You neglected to mention that Rutgers is leaving the conference with the conclusion of this football season.
BERT R. MANHOFF
Livingston, N.J.
PEOPLE
Sirs:
Recently you mentioned my opposition to the AAU (Odysseus with a Basketball, Nov. 27). It is true that I feel the AAU to be obsolete in structure and on the national level to be inadequate in personnel and policy. However, I do not advocate the end of the AAU but the formation of separate national sport federations, as is the world pattern. In these federations the AAU could be represented with authority proportionate to its activity in the particular sport.
There are many dedicated people who have contributed much to American sport while serving and working with the various state AAU associations. I feel they should be commended and not suffer from the errors of the national and international AAU policy. The new federations will welcome and need the continued assistance of these sportsmen.
JIM McGREGOR, National Coach
Basketball Federation of Peru
Barranquilla, Colombia
Sirs:
As you undoubtedly know, Coach Jim McGregor is bringing the Peruvian National Basketball team to this country this week for a two-month tour of the U.S. (including Alaska) and Canada. We of the People-to-People Sports Committee have helped them line up a series of games with various colleges, universities and municipal departments of recreation. The team is scheduled to play four games in the New York area from January 19 to 27, one of which will be against an all-star team from the Senior Recreation League of Livingston, N.J.
This same Livingston team played host to a university basketball team from Ecuador a couple of years ago and subsequently was invited to represent the U.S. in an international tournament staged in Ecuador. One reason for this, we believe, is that the citizens of Livingston housed the Ecuador team in their own homes, and this established a much more cordial relationship than was possible in other communities where they were housed in commercial facilities.
EDWARD P. F. EAGAN
Chairman, People-to-People
Sports Committee, Inc.
New York City
WHICH GOAL TO GO?
Sirs:
A supplement to Mr. Chet Andrews' letter entitled "Slide-Rule Goals" (19TH HOLE, Dec. 11):
There are 16 seconds to play. Baltimore leads New York 10-7, and the Giants have possession of the ball on their own 24-yard line. Tittle hits Shofner with a flat pass, and he breaks away. But Baltimore's secondary is after him. Now Shofner has only these trivial alternatives on his mind:
1) Slip and fall (on purpose) just before the 40-yard line and go for the win with a four-point field-goal attempt.
2) Take a chance and go for all the cookies with a touchdown.
3) Change running pace so the defender can nail him after the 40-yard line but before the 20-yard line so that the Giants can try for a tie.
4) Keep going, and get as many yards as possible so that his total-yards-gained record will look good at next year's contract time and the hell if he's downed inside the 20-yard line, thus necessitating a two-point try.
This he must figure in less than 10 seconds, while racing down the field with the payoff pellet in his arm and a ton of muscle bent on crashing him at the earliest opportunity.
I say leave the field goal status quo.
C. A. NEBAUER
Greensboro, N.C.
Sirs:
The drawback is that the defensive team might purposely allow the team in control of the ball to gain yardage to get inside the two-point range, while the offensive team might purposely make only the minimum gain in order to stay in the three-point range.
DON ANTHONY
Dayton, N.J.
Sirs:
Chet Andrews of Spencer, Iowa must be nuts! Why should a football team be penalized for moving the ball inside its opponent's 20-yard line? The way Andrews thinks field goals should be treated, a team that moves the ball only a few yards can get four points, while one that moves the ball almost the whole length of the football field gets only two. This is unfair!
HOWIE DAWSON
Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich.
GOODBY, GOODBY
Sirs:
As a longtime student of Pitcairn Island history, I was most interested in Gilbert Wheat's recent article, Legacy of the Bounty (Nov. 20). However, what particularly caught my eye was Wheat's closing remark: "At a signal from the longboat captain they all stood up and sang us a song of farewell." I have read about the Pitcairn Island farewell song before but have never been able to find the words to it. Can you tell me what they are?
C. C. DEWEY
New York City
•Thanks to noted CBS Broadcaster Bill Leonard—we can. Since communication with Pitcairn Island is always difficult and uncertain by regular channels, one of our editors sought the help of Leonard, a tireless shortwave radio ham (SI, June 30, 1958). In his 30 years of hamming, Leonard had been in contact with Pitcairn Island only once, but he applied himself eagerly to the task. At 3 o'clock of a Sunday morning some three months later Leonard was awakened by a collect phone call from a ham in Boston who told him Pitcairn's ham, Floyd McCoy, was trying to reach him. (It was then only 11 p.m. Saturday, Pitcairn time.) Leonard made contact and, in an hour-long chat, learned that McCoy had been off the air for several months awaiting the arrival of a new transmitter from the U.S. During the conversation Leonard jotted down the words to the Pitcairn Island Goodby Song as composed in 1900 by Miss Rouseline Young, a teacher at Pitcairn's main school. Here they are:
Now one last song we'll sing:
Goodby, goodby.
I move on rapid wing,
Goodby, goodby.
And this short year will soon be past,
Will soon be numbered with the last;
But as we part to all we'll say,
Goodby, goodby, goodby.
But as we part to all we'll say,
Goodby, goodby, goodby.
We gather now to say,
Goodby, goodby.
We can no longer stay;
Goodby, goodby.
Thanks for your love and constant care
And kindness that we daily share;
We part but hope to meet again.
Goodby, goodby, goodby.
We part but hope to meet again.
Goodby, goodby, goodby.
—ED.
PHOTO
RADIOMAN BILL LEONARD