19TH HOLE: THE READERS TAKE OVER
CHEERS
Sirs:
I thoroughly enjoyed Once it was Only Sis-Boom-Bah! by Pat Ryan in your SI Jan. 6 issue. I am disappointed that you failed to mention the most famous college cheer of all, that of the University of Arkansas: Oooooo Pig Souieeee, Oooooo Pig Souieeee, Oooooo Pig Souieeee, RAZORBACKS.
This cheer was very effective in New Orleans last week: Arkansas 16, Georgia 2.
OKLA BEN SMITH
Fort Smith, Ark.
Sirs:
I was very concerned to learn that the death of Dr. Martin Luther King had upset the campaign plans of Johnny Morgan. How thoughtless of Dr. King to allow himself to be murdered at such a vital turning point in America's history as the cheerleader elections at Ole Miss. I feel that the least we should do, as conscientious citizens, is to start a fund-raising drive to help Mr. Morgan defray the cost of the extra cards, which Dr. King's unfortunate sense of timing forced him to have printed.
ROBERT A. MARSHALL
Murphys, Calif.
Sirs:
Being an exchange student and new to this country, I was surprised, to say the least, after reading your Jan. 6 article on college cheerleading. I consider myself an intellectual to a great extent and to be one of many who consider this country as being in a somewhat perilous state.
With organizations such as SDS, to name one, I thought that bigotry and racism were slowly dying, for I assumed that this country's youth had discovered that there is no justification for hatred. Boy, was I misled. It was interesting to find out that Mary Jo Mansour was "sweating like a colored person." I think she would faint if she heard a black say that he or she was sweating like a white. After all, whites and blacks do sweat equally as much. I was also interested to know (compliments of Johnny Rebel) that there was a not at Mississippi because the "niggers" refused to sit at the back tables in The Grill.
"It is pointed out with pride at Ole Miss that few beards are seen." At a place where Confederate flags are waved I found that quote to be amusing. Didn't Jefferson Davis wear a beard?
From your article, all that I can conclude is that when today's college students in America become tomorrow's leaders, America will still be in a perilous state.
PETER MORGAN
Boston
Sirs:
Cheerleading is one thing and student activism is another. The combination, on the field or in print, is incongruous.
We go strong for the Purdue-type cheerleading—Diane Teder, Girl Scouts, milk shakes and a world of cheering optimism. Let's not give up a good thing!
I guess Pat Ryan just couldn't make the squad.
J.J. WEISHAAR JR.
Nyack, N.Y.
SHIVERED TIMBERS
Sirs:
In Hugh Whall's otherwise excellent account of Ondine's ordeal in the Sydney-Hobart race (The Hard Way to Hobart, Jan. 13) you have created a geographical paradox, to put it politely. In fact, it shivered my timbers. You say, "Bound southward from Germany around Cape Horn to Sydney...[Ondine] snapped off her mainmast in the Indian Ocean some 5,000 miles west of Sydney."
I suspect that Whall's cable read BOUND SOUTHWARD AROUND THE CAPE, and then some overeager editorial pencil made it "Cape Horn" instead of the Cape of Good Hope. The two are as far apart linguistically as they are geographically. Allow me to quote you a master mariner who was also a master storyteller. In The Mirror of the Sea (1906), Joseph Conrad writes:
"It was somewhere near the Cape—The Cape being, of course, the Cape of Good Hope.... And whether it is...because men are shy of confessing their good hopes, it has become the nameless cape—the Cape, tout court. The other great cape of the world, strangely enough, is seldom if ever called a cape. We say 'a voyage round the Horn;' 'we rounded the Horn;' 'we got a frightful battering off the Horn;' but rarely 'Cape Horn.' "
Shyly or no, I confess my good hope that you will restore our Good Hope.
PERRY GREENE
New York City
•Or, as Herman Melville put it in his White Jacket: "Sailor or landsman, there is some sort of Cape Horn for all. Boys! beware of it.... Greybeards! thank God it is passed."
—ED.
DEATH IN A SCHOOLYARD
Sirs:
Congratulations to Dennis Valianos (SCORECARD, Jan. 6). He did an excellent job of presenting life as it is in these United States today. It isn't every day a group of elementary school children can watch their teacher, and supposed leader, commit a cold-blooded murder in the schoolyard.
Can 20 years of violence on television or in the theater have any more detrimental effect on these children than what Mr. Valianos provided in a few short minutes in a Virginia schoolyard?
G. HARRY STOPP JR.
Tuscaloosa, Ala.
DOUBLY BUBBLY
Sirs:
It is to be sincerely hoped by all of us in the New York State wine industry that your exceptionally fine reporting on the New York Jets' victory celebration on Sunday, Dec. 29th did not bring down more than 25 cases of champagne upon their heads. We adopted the Jets, win or lose, in their title game against the Oakland Raiders. We were given permission to supply the champagne, and happily it was doubly bubbly because they were able to toast each other in triumph.
It grieved us to read in Edwin Shrake's story of the triumph over the Raiders that President Milt Woodard of the American Football League might find it his duty to impose fines on the Jets for violation of an antichampagne ordinance, which apparently is not waived for even such sweet moments as these.
If there is to be any chastisement, someone ought to at least mildly reprimand these young men for pouring the champagne all over each other. It was ice cold and could have caused chills and weakened resistance. Champagne, as everyone knows, belongs at happy occasions. Let us not legislate against what must have been the happiest of times.
PAUL M. SCHLEM
Chairman
Gold Seal Vineyards, Inc.
Hammondsport, N.Y.
SOB
Sirs:
I am shocked at the George Allen (L.A. Rams coach) firing affair (A Marriage That Was Doomed, Jan. 6). Yes, shocked at the disgraceful sight of seeing Allen weeping his way through a TV interview.
Then comes another classic. U.S. Davis Cup Captain Dell "broke down and wept during presentation ceremonies while Ashe was moved to tears after his defeat" (UPI report). And here on the West Coast we have the dandy of them all, John Ralston, coach of the Stanford University football team, whose nickname is Sob Sister.
With these examples it is no wonder that so-called American sportsmanship is ridiculed throughout the world.
KEN BRADY
San Francisco