LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER

As you may know, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED'S parent company, Time Inc., has acquired a new president, James R. Shepley. He succeeds James A. Linen, who asked to be relieved of his duties because of a recent illness. Both men have been much involved in sport during the years SI has been in publication, and there is no reason to think their changed assignments (Jim Linen moves over to be Chairman of the Executive Committee) will diminish that interest.

There may be some changes in emphasis, though. When Jim Linen became president in 1960 he was a whale of an amateur golfer—close to scratch. Under the weight of his business and civic duties, his handicap has soared all the way up to eight. Soared? Well, that's how he describes it. We hope, with the lessening of business pressure, he will be able to shave a few strokes.

"I've been a golfer all my life," Jim said happily the other day. "It's been my chief avocation in life—the very best for relaxation and, most of all, fun. I'm looking forward to many more years of golf, and more of it, because I'll no longer be doing two weeks' work in one."

The odds are that Jim Shepley is going to have somewhat less time for his avocation, which is blue-water sailing (along the way he became a passionate fisherman—he has caught all the varieties of big-game fish—and a trophy winner in such sports as fly casting, skeet shooting and pistol shooting). Shepley sails the Syriene, a 42-foot Comanche, and has twice participated in the Bermuda race as well as the Miami-Nassau, Annapolis-Newport and a variety of Long Island Sound contests.

Certainly Jim will have some opportunities to sail. After all, before his present appointment, he served as the highly effective publisher of FORTUNE and then of TIME, and in earlier years was chief of the Time Inc. Washington bureau and a war correspondent. He fished and sailed through those years and very successfully, too. This past summer Syriene finished second in her class at Block Island and fifth in the Annapolis-Newport race.

By the same token, Jim Linen is not going to spend all his time cutting that handicap. In addition to many commitments for Time Inc., he is president of the National Urban League and an officer of half a dozen other national and civic-service groups. Jim also remains as one of the sponsors of the International Golf Association. He will soon be off to Singapore for the IGA World Cup, to be played the first week in October.

So...golfers of the world, beware! And as for business people who may not yet know Jim Shepley, be advised that he has posted a celestial navigation chart in his office.

PHOTO

A LOW-HANDICAP golfer himself, James Linen (right) presents trophy.

PHOTO

TIME INC. President James Shepley is an enthusiastic sailor and fisherman.