LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER

The 1972 College Football Issue, like its predecessors, is hewn from hundreds of pages of reports, analyses, team and conference brochures and plenty of first-person interviews with coaches and players. What finally reaches the readers is a distillation of these reams of raw material by our college football editor, Walter Bingham. In the process, some trivial but frequently fascinating bits of information get lost.

Well, not exactly lost. This year Bingham decided to poll his staff for their choices of items, from among all the intelligence received from our stringers and correspondents, they would have most liked to include in their reports—if there had been room. What Bingham turned up was enough trivia to keep him a hit at cocktail parties from now until Rose Bowl time. We pass a few of these items along in hopes they will enrich your forthcoming college football season.

•Barry McDermott, scouting Big Ten country, learned that Minnesota Athletic Director Paul Giel is going to be stuck with several hundred bumper stickers he had printed which read: GOPHERS ROLL WITH GIEL AND STOLL. Reason: the new Minnesota coach, Cal Stoll, pronounces himself to rhyme with "ball."

•Down South, Gwilym Brown and Bill White volunteered the information that Tulane can, on certain pass plays this season, keep the ball in play without having it leave the Foley family. Rob Foley is the center, brother Steve is the quarterback and brother Mike is a receiver.

•Don Delliquanti, in his survey of the Eastern football Establishment, discovered that Maryland Halfback Lou Carter may have done himself more good than anyone during the summer. He helped lay a new turf at the Terps' Byrd Stadium. Very softly.

•West Coast football scouts Stephanie Salter and Jim Kaplan nominate Cal Defensive End Jameel Khalid Al-Kawi for their man-of-distinction award. He showed up at a Bears alumni dinner in black, robe, fez, full beard and carrying a flute.

•But Al-Kawi will have to beat out the entry of Joe Jares and Ron Scott, who also concentrated their efforts on the West Coast. Stanford Linebacker Pat Moore returned to Palo Alto after six months in England sporting shoulder-length hair, a mustache and a gold earring in his left lobe.

•At New Mexico U., according to Jane Gross, offensive coordinator Walt Klinker doesn't hit too many of them with his pep talks and training regimes, which he says are suggested during nocturnal visitations by Knute Rockne.

•Kent Hannon thought the variegated plights of Toledo Coach Jack Murphy were worthy of note. Besides losing 20 lettermen from his undefeated 1971 squad, he can't even get decent movies. The flick of his first scrimmage came up as 800 feet of sideline inaction when the viewfinder of the camera went askew.

•Georgia Placekicker Kim Braswell, reports Roy Blount, wears a hearing aid that he turns off in game situations so the crowd noise won't disturb him. Only trouble, adds Blount, is that he then misses the shouted instructions from the coaches on the sidelines.

•Larry Keith's travels through the South turned up the fact that Florida State Quarterback Gary Huff keeps inspirational pinups on his dormitory walls. He has Joe Namath "for his quick release," Sonny Jurgensen "for his strong arm," John Unitas "for his field generalship" and Bart Starr "for his manner and personality."

The most pointed discovery was probably the one Harold Peterson made at the University of Nebraska. He was soberly informed there will be nothing trivial or amusing about Cornhusker football this autumn.