PEOPLE
Assistant Professor Tommie Smith, in England recently to compete in the World Professional Sprint Championship, stopped by to pay his respects and extend apologies to the Marquess of Exeter. It was the marquess who presented Smith with his gold medal for winning the 200-meter dash at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968—which Smith acknowledged with a black power salute that made front pages around the world. "I'm sorry if I caused the marquess embarrassment," said Smith, but added that "it was the right thing to do at the time." To prove times really have changed, ex-rebel Smith announced he has joined the Establishment, in a way, by accepting a job as assistant athletic director at Ohio's Oberlin College.
If anybody is thinking of starting a career-of-the-month club, Joe Kapp ought to sign on as a charter member. The former Minnesota Viking and New England Patriot quarterback, who played innkeeper in Vancouver during his holdout last season, is now in Hollywood being an actor. Here he works out with Chad Everett in an episode of the TV show Medical Center.
Joe Garagiola for Secretary of Defense? Stan Musial for Attorney General? What's going on here? Actually, these were just a few of the suggestions bantered about following the nomination of Senator Thomas Eagleton, a longtime Cardinal fan, for Vice President two weeks ago. Musial, who owns the hotel in Miami where most of the Missouri delegation to the Democratic Convention quartered, recalled how Eagleton and his late father—an Anheuser-Busch attorney and onetime team director—used to follow the Cards. "They'd come down to St. Petersburg in the spring and spend a lot of time on the bench and in the clubhouse," said The Man. NBC's Garagiola, meanwhile, used his old Cardinal ties to land one of the first TV interviews with the nominee.
Swen Nater, the 6'11" UCLA reserve center who won a starting spot with the U.S. Olympic basketball team, walked out of the squad's Honolulu training camp last week and returned to his home in Long Beach, Calif. His reason: hunger. Although Coach Hank Iba and Olympic basketball chairman Bill Summers were not talking, Nater said that mealtimes in camp were right after practice, a schedule that simply did not coincide with his hunger pangs. "I was dehydrated after practice, and didn't feel like eating," he said. "My strength was weakening and it caught up with me." He will be replaced by Tom McMillen of Maryland.
The U.S. Senate has passed a bill sponsored by Senator Fred Harris (D., Okla.) to provide for commemorative medals honoring Jim Thorpe, who among other athletic achievements won the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Olympics. The bill, which now must pass the House, authorizes six gold medals and up to 50,000 bronze duplicates for public sale. The idea is to rehabilitate Thorpe's image, tarnished by charges he violated his amateurism by playing semi-professional baseball before competing in the Stockholm Games. He was later forced to return his Olympic golds.
The family that chews together shouldn't lose together. Texas Ranger Coach Nellie Fox and his wife Joanne struck this domestic pose before a recent husbands-wives Softball game in Arlington. Joanne says she is a bush leaguer at tobacco chewing, but obviously she has big-league potential.
Why is it whenever you need a cop he's out of uniform? Willis Reed of the New York Knicks was backing out of a garage in Queens last week and nearly ran into a car driven by off-duty patrolman Joseph Guarino. Words were exchanged and then, said Guarino, Reed reached for something (it turned out to be an umbrella) so the officer went for his gun. Only then, says Reed, did Guarino identify himself. Guarino says Reed next flashed a shield at him, claiming to be a cop also. Unimpressed, the 5'7" Guarino hauled the 6'10" Reed to headquarters, charged with, among other things, impersonating an officer. Reed, in turn, was talking about making charges of his own.
The House Select Crime Committee finally managed to land Frank Sinatra for a personal appearance last week. The singer's disclosures were less than heart-stopping, however. Before a packed committee room, Sinatra told the Congressmen that, yes, he had invested $55,000 in the Berkshire Downs racetrack in Massachusetts, but that, no, he knew nothing about alleged gangland ties with the track through Raymond Patriarca, a New England rackets figure. In any case, he added, he got out of his investment shortly after learning he was being listed as an official of the corporation. This conflicted with his part ownership of the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, Sinatra said. As for Joe (The Baron) Barboza, who had named Sinatra in earlier testimony, the singer said he was "a bum" who "went running off at the mouth."
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