SCORECARD
THE PAX MacARTHUR
After nine hours of uninterrupted debate—no lunch, no dinner, no candy bars—the war between the AAU and the NCAA was settled Saturday night. The settlement ended the boycotts and suspensions which have threatened our Olympic program in recent weeks and it forced the AAU to share a chunk of its previously exclusive power as well as to recognize the newly formed U.S. Track and Field Federation.
Pretty much by fiat of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, appointed by President Kennedy to resolve the dispute, an Olympic Eligibility Board will be formed, with three members representing the AAU and three representing the USTFF, the latter as agent of the NCAA and affiliate members. The AAU continues as international representative to the International Track and Field Federation, world governing body, but its policies in that area, insofar as the 1964 Olympics are concerned, must be formed with the assistance of the colleges.
The solution is all to the good, and very close to what we have recommended as making obvious sense—very close, in fact, to what was negotiated by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy when he attempted to mediate the dispute. That mediation, accepted by the AAU negotiators, was repudiated by the AAU membership, a rejection that led to the President's power play. When General MacArthur took over it was not as a mediator but as an arbitrator, and he will remain arbitrator until after the 1964 Olympics, when an athletic congress probably will be called by the President to devise a permanent plan for peace in sport.
Not since 1905, when Teddy Roosevelt called in representatives of Harvard, Yale and Princeton and told them to clean up football or else, has the prestige of the presidency been so used in sport. It is unfortunate that grown men could not have settled their problems without government intervention. It is unfortunate that even now they cannot be trusted to build an Olympic team without an all-powerful arbitrator to force them to make intelligent decisions, or to make them himself if they cannot. In a democracy such power should come from the freely given consent of the governed. The AAU and NCAA did not freely give consent to arbitration but, in a way, they asked for it.
FISH FINDERS
The seven-pound steelhead that Ken Buntrock had just landed from the Mattole River in California was still wriggling on the bank. Suddenly there appeared from the brush another fisherman, a stranger. After examining the fish, the stranger unslung a walkie-talkie from his shoulder and began to broadcast. More walkie-talkie bearers converged from the trees in answer to the scout. When the group numbered seven, and they all had their rods ready for action, Buntrock silently picked up his fish and took a walkie.
STRAIGHT AS AN ARROW
Gadgetry in sport often is an affliction. The simplest gear usually is the best. Now comes an archery gadget, unveiled this week at Chicago's Sporting Goods Show, that may be an exception to the rule. It is a telescopic sight, to be attached to the bow just above the archer's grip, and it is said to do wonders for accuracy.
Dr. O. A. Stiennon, a Madison, Wis. radiologist and archer, dreamed it up and Norland Associates Inc., an engineering firm that devised an electric can opener, developed it.
The sight, weighing only 5½ ounces, magnifies the target either two or four times, depending on the model, and also, with the aid of a pair of prisms, enables one to tilt the bow at just the right elevation to get the proper trajectory. A graduated dial lets you set the range at anywhere from 0 to 125 yards without moving the sight on the bow. Instead of the usual sighting dot, or cross hair, the bowsight injects a tiny beam of red light into the center position in such a way that its rays are parallel to those coming from the target. The dot seems to be planted right on the target.
Much has been done to improve bows, bowstrings and arrows since the Battle of Hastings, but pointing the arrow has not improved a whit until now. Gilbert Boenig, president of the National Field Archery Association, has not yet seen the bowsight, but as it has been described to him he feels that it does not violate NFAA rules, which prohibit use of range finders or of any device that is an aid in establishing the distance of any shot.
LADIES ALL
Female soccer players, according to Mr. Percy Ashley, a 73-year-old retired scrap merchant of Manchester, England, have better natures and are better travelers than the males. In 1949 he founded the Corinthian Ladies' Football Club because his daughter liked the game. It now has 50 players, their ages ranging from 13 to 27, and when not playing soccer they work as mill hands, secretaries and at assorted tasks.
Mr. Ashley's girls have played 344 matches in 14 seasons, have won 313, lost 15 and tied 16. They have booted a total of 2,145 goals and had only 400 scored against them. They have toured continental Europe, parts of Latin America, the British West Indies and Ireland, meeting and usually beating the best.
On a recent tour the Corinthians left Manchester at 4 p.m. in a bus, traveled 200 miles to London, caught the midnight plane to Germany, took a bus to Essen, slept 2½ hours, toured Essen, played a soccer match at Bochum (a tie), got to bed at one in the morning, rose at six, were on the 250-mile road to Stuttgart by eight, played another game (another tie), took another bus to Frankfurt, flew to London, went back to Manchester by bus and arrived there Monday morning at eight, which left them half an hour to get to their jobs.
"Some of our brawny, highly paid men footballers would faint at the very idea of a tour like that," Mr. Ashley says admiringly.
Some of our brawny, highly paid baseball players, complaining about the rigors of a 162-game season, have already fainted, just from reading this.
THE INSIDE TRACK
•Roger Maris, a hard bargainer with the Yankees last year, has reportedly consented to a $15,000 salary cut this year. He was paid something like $60,000 in 1962.
•J. Walter Kennedy, ex-Notre Dame publicist and first publicity man for the National Basketball Association, now serving his third term as mayor of Stamford, Conn., is foremost candidate to succeed Maurice Podoloff as president of the NBA.
•The Iron Curtain's only professional sportsman, Laszlo Papp, European middleweight boxing champion, probably will retire this year to train the Hungarian team for the Tokyo Olympics. Before that he plans a grandstand farewell in Budapest's People's Stadium against a top opponent, his first professional fight in Hungary and Hungary's only pro fight since the war.
•America's top jockey in 1962, Ronnie Ferraro, has first call to ride the horses of the Greentree Stable of John Hay (Jock) Whitney and Joan Payson through the current Hialeah meeting and probably will be signed to ride all their horses in 1963.
BY NO MEANS HUNGRY FIGHTER
Directors of the Murray (Utah) State Bank sat down last week to fill a vacancy on the board. Placed in nomination was the name of a man who owns a large mink ranch in nearby West Jordan; has a stable of prizewinning quarter horses; is a church elder; owns several acres of valuable land; and, of course, has plenty of money in the bank. He was elected unanimously.
The new bank director arose, smiled, thanked the directors for the honor, and hoped that the next meeting of the board would not be on February 23. Banker Gene Fullmer explained bashfully that he will be out of town on that date, trying to regain the world's middleweight boxing championship from Dick Tiger in Las Vegas.
COURTLY TENNIS
With good will and geniality, an excellent field of court tennis professionals and amateurs met last week at the Racquet Club of Philadelphia to compete and coexist. This has yet to happen in lawn tennis but it may some day come to pass. The occasion was the U.S. Open Court Tennis Singles Tournament. Neither amateur nor pro appeared to suffer from the propinquity.
"We all know we owe everything in this game to our pros," toasted one amateur, U.S.C.T.A. President W. L. (Sammy) Van Alen at the prefinals dinner. The pros were reciprocally complimentary and also very respectful. Amateurs were addressed as "mister," pros by their first names. Still, Mr. William Vogt of Princeton and the Racquet Club was the only player with a tattoo.
Mr. Vogt was also both the last amateur and last member of the host club to be eliminated, falling in the semifinals to Albert (Jack) Johnson in four sets. Johnson had not played the game in three years. (He is a racquets pro in Chicago, and none of the seven U.S. court-tennis courts lie west of the Appalachians.) He went on to win the tournament. A third-generation pro, Johnson has played court tennis for almost 40 of his 43 years. But he has a long way to go. His father, Edward Johnson, still teaches the game in England at the age of 86.
ILLUSTRATION
THEY SAID IT
•Ernie Banks, Chicago Cub star, denying that he plans to drop out of the race for the Republican nomination for alderman in Chicago: "Politics is a strange business. They try to strike you out before you get a turn at bat."
•Cassius Clay, heavyweight fighter: "I figure I'll be champ for about 10 years, and then I'll let my brother [Rudolph] take over—like the Kennedys down in Washington."
•Mrs. Don Shula, wife of the new Baltimore Colt coach, on her status as a pro football fanatic: "I was completely furious with those Cubans for staging that uprising, crowding pro football off the front page."