PEOPLE

Somebody at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y. has a droll sense of humor. The college awarded an honorary doctorate of laws degree to former Celtic star Bill Russell last week. The citation read: "Time does not dim or absence wilt the record of your achievements...."

NO GOLD MEDALS HERE! exclaimed Britain's Daily Express following the first public showing of the 1972 Olympic uniform for the British team. The men's outfit features unflared white slacks and navy blazer—"this year's version of Dad's old trilby," remarked the Express' Jean Rook. The British women will wear box jackets, box pleats and straw boaters—"likely to go down in Munich like a badly thrown hammer," added Miss Rook. London Designer Vera Turner defended her creations as having "a slightly royal look." Right, said Reporter Rook. The dress "would look charming on the Queen Mother."

Some of the world's heavy environmental thinkers gathered in Sweden last week for a U.N. conference—nicknamed Wood-stockholm—on how to save the planet. U.S. representative Shirley Temple Black told the conference she would like to see women given a bigger role in environmental matters, and in fact she proposed a slogan to cover such a grouping: Earth's Better Half. If that struck some delegates as a bit chauvinistic, there's always the old standby, Earth Mothers.

To sell or not to sell? That seems to be the question in Los Angeles, where one of sport's blue-chip properties, the NFL Rams, has become more or less available since the death of Owner Dan Reeves last year. The president of the team, Bill Barnes, says the caretaker management is talking with "a number of groups, and we are making progress with some." Among those mentioned as possible buyers (for an amount said to range between $16 million and $20 million) are Carlos Romer, a landscape architect, and Hugh Culverhouse, a Florida attorney. One rumor has a prospective buyer planning to move the club to Jacksonville, Fla., to which an NFL official said, "Forget it." Whoever gets the club, and whatever the price, it does not look like a high-return investment. "What that franchise will earn," said a tax attorney, "no man would accept from his favorite bank."

For the first time ever, the Dodgers have retired uniform numbers. Last week three went in one fell swoop—those of Roy Campanella (39), Jackie Robinson (42) and Sandy Koufax (32).

Meanwhile, Don Hutson, the nine-year All-Pro end for the Green Bay Packers, had his number retired twice. Twenty-one years ago the Packers removed his No. 14 from competition. New Coach Dan Devine didn't know about this, however, and awarded it to rookie Jerry Tagge when he was signed this spring. Devine found out about the earlier retirement, put the number back in mothballs and sent Hutson a gift—a new No. 14 jersey. "Good," says Hutson. "I seem to have lost the last one I had."

Film Actor Ryan O'Neal, once of Love Story, has become a fight manager. Welterweight Hedgemon Lewis, who is jointly sponsored by O'Neal, Bill Cosby and Robert Goulet, won the "world's championship of New York" by taking a 15-round decision from Billy Backus in Syracuse Friday night. O'Neal certainly doesn't dress his new part. In fact, he's probably the world's first fight manager to wear blue jeans, a Grateful Dead T shirt, a What's Up Doc? arm patch and a McGovern button.

The Rev. Bob Richards, who won two Olympic vaulting medals back in the days of stiff poles, has offered any modern vaulter $10,000 if he can exceed his mark of 15'6" using the old pole. That proposition includes Richards' son, Bob Jr., 22, who has already cleared 17 feet using fiber glass.

The saga of Denny McLain gets more curious by the pitch. Now a player for the Birmingham Barons, the former 30-game winner popped up in Savannah, Ga. recently on a road trip. Instead of sharing the same motel with his teammates, McLain chose to reside in a $75-a-day suite at the Savannah Inn and Country Club as the nonpaying guest of Executive Director Lou (The Tailor) Rosanova, a former Chicagoan with underworld ties. McLain, who still gets his major league salary of $75,000, said of life in the minors: "It's great until we have to go to the ball park."

Former light-heavyweight champion Archie Moore doesn't devote all of his time to the youngsters of his Any Boy Can organization. Here he looks over the boxing style of his son, Hardy Moore, who shows all the signs of being another...well, Archie Moore.

TWO PHOTOS