PEOPLE

With the basketball team losing three-fourths of its games, it had been a long, bleak winter. But as spring made slowly for Wahoo, Neb., Athletic Director and All-purpose Coach Bob Cerv of tiny, one-year-old John F. Kennedy College held high hopes for his baseball team. That's because 31 men (or one-third of the male enrollment at the still all-freshmen school) turned out for the squad—shades of Wahoo Sam Crawford—and with interest running so high there's no telling how well the JFK Patriots will do. But what had lured the ex-major leaguer to small-town life? "It's home," said Cerv. "The right kind of place to bring up my 10 kids."

While Ambassador Angier Biddle Duke, beaming good health, got his feet (and his children) wet in troubled, 59° diplomatic waters (below), Columnist Art Buchwald predicted that the nettlesome old hydrogen bomb lost off the coast of Spain will be found very shortly by a surfing club. That, of course, will make the club a nuclear power, and the big question then will be what they will do with the blasted thing. "Morty was for setting it off right away just to see what kind of bang it would make," a spokesman will tell the Geneva conference, "but I said the bomb really belongs to the club." But the club will be hung up on the disposal question; some are for sinking Cuba, others for swapping the bomb for Hawaii and those 19-foot "heavies." Actually, the club spokesman concludes, "We don't know what we want. If we did, we wouldn't be surfers."

Small for her age, perhaps, and still a mite pale and skinny, but there may be a big swimming future ahead for France's Laurence Vendroux, the grandniece of Charles de Gaulle. Enrolled by her parents in the demanding Racing-Club de France, 11-year-old Laurence has shown such proficiency in the six months she has devoted to serious swimming that already there are mutterings that she may be the new Kiki Caron, France's fading Olympic silver medalist. Laurence's first major test comes in the fall when her school will require her to swim the 100-meter crawl in less than 1:45—or get out of the water.

When Randy Matson began to play basketball at Texas A&M last fall, some cynics said that as a basketball player he had the makings of a fine shotputter. But last week Southwest Conference basketball writers named him the sophomore player of the year. Surprised me, too, said Matson—who a few days later was back putting the shot.

Aside from an incipient headache from trying to remember which hat he had on, Don Drysdale seemed unfazed. Speaking as Labor, he continued to demand his rights and a three-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers worth half a million dollars. Speaking as Management, he said the AFL-CIO organizers picketing his Dugout restaurant in Van Nuys, Calif. in demand of a union contract and 18¢ worth of fringe benefits were wasting their time.

Stumping Florida to build up interest in his new AFL franchise, the Miami Dolphins, Danny Thomas made a dozen speeches, in most of them forgetting about football. In one, for example, he talked about his wedding, his family, his furniture and his TV sponsor—while in the rear of the hall his partner in the Dolphin enterprise made frantic passing and kicking motions. Said Thomas in conclusion: "We have spoken today of family, philosophy, religion and charity. My partner reminds me we are here to sell football tickets. Remember, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. And I am your neighbor."

Traditionally at the University of Mississippi, football players who have completed their eligibility assist with the freshman team. Excused from such duty this year is ex-Quarterback Jim Weatherly, who since football season ended has spent most of his free time building a singing career and very little of it having his hair cut. The way the Ole Miss athletic-department mind sees it, your clean-cut boy is your crew-cut boy. Weatherly doesn't qualify.

Eyes round these past six months, American League Umpire Ed Runge steadily steered himself through the dimly lit world of contemporary music as a record plugger and emerged last week blinking but convinced it was a beautiful part-time life. Runge, in his 40s, found the work rewarding once the lingo barrier between him and southern California disc jockeys had been hurdled. "When I started out," he says, "I didn't know what they were talking about half the time." For which good reason it will be refreshing for him to be back on the diamond where "swingingest" describes Mickey Mantle and "go-go" is what they scream at Bert Campaneris.

In a tapestried, chandeliered salon in Paris, Olympic slalom champion Christine Goitschel (below) happily chose the dress she would wear next month to marry her trainer, Jean Béranger. But a few days later, while standing beside a piste in Méribel, Christine was bowled over by a runaway skier, wound up in a heap with her right leg broken in two places—her only accident on a ski slope after 15 years of competition. Last week, propped up in plaster, Christine watched sister Marielle make ready to depart for the U.S. and three international ski meets. "Cheer up," said Marielle. "The cast is white—it won't go badly with your wedding gown."

TWO PHOTOS