PEOPLE

Ten years ago, when Penn State put on a performance of Guys and Dolls, All-America Linebacker Sam Valentine was chosen to play the role of Big Julie. But this year the Thespians have had to settle for a mere potential All-America, Junior Linebacker Mike Reid (below, left). Reid has been away from football since a knee operation in October. The leg was in a cast during rehearsals, but, as opening night approaches, Reid is determined to go on. "I showed up [at the tryouts] and liked it so much I jumped in with both feet," Mike says, electing a rather painful figure of speech for a man in his condition. Says the adviser to the Thespians: "He's a natural for this. In fact, you might even call him a ham."

"Sailing on a sunny day is the nearest thing to heaven anyone will ever get on this earth—certainly the nearest thing I will ever get." If so, it won't be because this happy sailor has no choice of pleasures. The statement was made by Princess Anne of England.

Mrs. Francis Denis, chairman of the hospitality committee at last week's Hawaiian Open, decided to bring some sociability to the pre-tournament bickering among country club members and friends eager to entertain the big-name golfers by staging a pick-a-pro cocktail party at which the 134 players would be distributed like door prizes. Mrs. Maxine Partridge, a 26-handicap golfer and the operator of a gift shop named the Bird Cage, won Arnold Palmer. After the initial pleasure of having won the first prize—so to speak—wore off, Mrs. Partridge began to worry as any good hostess would. "Now that I have him," she said, "I don't know what to do with him." Two single girls who had hopes of entertaining a bachelor pro were disappointed when they drew an obscure competitor who had recently been married. The girls finally managed to palm him off on someone else and tried again. This time they came up with Doug Sanders, who not only is famous but these days is decidedly single. "I hope he doesn't want to play golf," one of the girls said. "We shoot in the high hundreds."

Here in the hopped-up U.S. there is nothing surprising about all the testy complaints that baseball and golf need speeding up, but it is a shock to read that an ex-Prime Minister of England wants to jazz up cricket, of all things. Sir Alec Douglas-Home wrote sternly in a recent article, "Batsmen too often seem to forget that they are there to make runs at a pace which will give the bowlers time to get the other side out." And he went on to conclude ominously, "If the spectators are not going to see a competitive game they will go anywhere rather than the cricket ground.... They will stay at home with the television and switch on to some other sport which gives them action, entertainment and value for money." Well, it's their sport, and who are we in America to tell them how it should be run, but why on earth do they want to eliminate the leisurely pace and traditional tea break? So they can get home earlier to the telly and switch on some other sport?

The sport of kings is, of course, horse racing, but apparently no one has explained that to King Olav of Norway, King Constantine of Greece, Prince Harald of Norway and Prince Albert of the Belgians. They have all gathered in London to spend a week discussing yacht racing.

Sammy Davis Jr. won a stuffed camel and was elected Grand High Sultan of the Reno National Championship Camel Race recently—in spite of not riding the camel. Some of the larger clubs have revived what one journalist refers to as "a sport of the old West—camel racing," though it would seem to be more an older sport of the old East. In any case, word was that Davis was going to enter the competition for his present employer, Harrah's Club. He declined the honor of racing, but apparently he could not decline the honor of winning when his club's cammel came in first without Davis aboard. On the same occasion Singer Sergio Franchi, performing at another Reno club, came in second in the ostrich cart race. Franchi did drive his own ostrich, making him one up on Davis, but he did not win a stuffed camel. Two up.

"Let's get right away from golf and go fishing," British Golfer Peter Townsend suggested to Bobby Cole and Walter Godfrey during the Dunlop tournament in Canberra, Australia last week. South Africa's Cole got somewhat farther away than Townsend had intended. Bobby is a brilliant young golfer, but he cannot swim, and an experiment in the Murrumbidgee River nearly proved fatal. The golfers decided to stop fishing and swim 20 yards to a rock. When Cole dived in he did not come up. "All we saw were bubbles," Townsend says. "Godfrey and I dived in immediately, and we saw him in mud on the floor of the river, about 10 feet down. Luckily he's no giant, and we got him out easily enough." If Cole had no previous preference for sand traps over water hazards he probably has one now.

Having a little free time before the start of the baseball season, Joe DiMaggio and Red Sox Outfielder Tony Conigliaro (above) recently took off for a three-week tour of Vietnam. Conigliaro departed unafraid of the Viet Cong—he was apparently too busy with stage fright. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do, except talk. I sing and have a recording out, you know, but I wouldn't dare try it there without a big band behind me."

TWO PHOTOS