PEOPLE

Actor Richard Boone, a sparring partner of pro boxers for 11 years and a friend of Archie Moore, tells this story. It seems that Archie, driving on a Los Angeles street, did something to anger another driver. "This guy," Boone says, "grabbed Archie by the collar and began yelling '@#% nigger, you @#% think you can....' Then he stopped and said, 'Say, don't I know you from somewhere?' Brushing the man's hands off, Archie said, very gently, "You ain't talkin' like you do.' "

"James Monroe is kind of out of it, man. We have no way of relating to him," explained a student spokesman for a petition to change the name of James Monroe High School in Sepulveda, Calif. to Marilyn Monroe High School. But what could Marilyn Monroe H.S. nickname its athletic teams? That they could all relate to, that is?

Present Indiana Governor Edgar Whitcomb was called in to substitute for Republican gubernatorial candidate Dr. Otis Bowen in placekicking a red, white and blue (political) football at a rally in Indianapolis. Whitcomb made good contact but the trajectory was low, the ball hitting a female onlooker in the forehead. The governor rushed to her, apologized and kissed her. "I'm sorry Dr. Bowen couldn't have been here to kick that," he said. Or maybe that other candidate, Whatshisname, who said just the other day, "My golf game is improving. I shot 92. But only three of them were seriously injured."

Dick Taylor, a Topeka rooting contractor, recently showed his disdain for Kansas' chances in the Nebraska game by making a series of bets in which he took Nebraska and gave as the point spread the temperature at kick-off time. All of Taylor's friends laughed—until, two days before the game, when the temperature dropped to 20°, a record for the date and a low neither Kansas nor Taylor needed. With the final score 56-0, he could have won in a heat wave.

For appearing on the Dick Cavett Show, Olympic 800-meter gold medalist Dave Wottle of Bowling Green State University was given $100 to be donated to charity. Wottle's selection: the Bowling Green track team.

What may have been the world's first blacktop-breaking ceremony took place at Yosemite National Park. George Hartzog Jr., director of the Park Service, pickaxed a piece of pavement to start the removal of several large parking lots, to be replaced by grass, trees and flowers.

Russell Yeulett of Cairns, Australia was motoring along near home when he noticed a crocodile lying beside the road. "I thought it was dead, and wanted the skin, so I just tossed it on the back seat," Yeulett said. "I had gone about two miles when I heard its jaws snap." Yeulett did not look back. He drove straight to the zoo.

Humble Howard Cosell gets the award for the world's most Machiavellian radio commercial. "And now I'd like to tell you about a snack you may not like," Cosell begins his spiel. "Slim Jim's Meat Snacks have a spicy, tangy flavor that no one is ever neutral about. You either love them or you don't." Cosell pauses for full effect, scowls and says, "Me? I can't stand 'em." Slim Jim's reasoning is obvious: all the people who can't stand Howard Cosell will run right out and buy a gross.

British Private Gary Smart requested compassionate leave from his commanding officer to visit a sick friend. Righto. Standard military procedure. Request granted. Except that Smart wanted to go home to see a sick whale, Ramu. Smart had been working at the Windsor Safari Park. Since his enlistment Ramu had been pining away. He did an about-face on Gary's return and went back to eating his normal 130 pounds a day. Smart whale, all right.

There was an atmosphere more of a second-story burglary than of a football excursion surrounding Navy's trip to the Rockies for a game against Air Force. The Middies snuck into town as late as possible Friday night and left immediately after making off with a 21-17 victory, all to spend as little time as possible in Colorado's thin air. Why is the mystery. When the Navy coach, Rick Forzano, was at Wooster of Ohio, he recalls, the team turned to oxygen for help, and sure enough, a back went 87 yards for the winning touchdown. "Afterward he told reporters it was the oxygen," Forzano says. "I figured I'd try some oxygen myself. When I put it to my mouth, I didn't feel anything. I turned to one of the clubmen and he said, 'Yeah, coach, by the way, I couldn't get those tanks working all day.' "

The Commonwealth has taste. Funny taste. After predicting that the Russians would win six of eight games in the hockey series against Canada, Montreal Star Columnist John Robertson ate his column. The whole thing, liberally doused with Russian dressing. How did it taste? "As bad as it read," Robertson says.

In Australia, when swimmer Shane Gould was being presented a bouquet at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, an attending police horse decided it would make a nice snack. As Shane looked elsewhere, dobbin took a large bite. Shane decided half a bouquet was worse than none and fed him the rest.

John Ladd, equipment manager for the Norwich (Vt.) University football team, has missed only five days' work in the last 10 years despite certain possible distractions: he helps manage a 175-acre farm, has 15 great grand children and is 90 years old.

How well does Sherm Chavoor, the Sacramento coach who developed Mark Spitz, Debbie Meyer and other Olympic swimmers, do in the water himself? "If I fell out of a boat 20 feet from shore, I could barely make it," Chavoor says.

TWO PHOTOS