PEOPLE

Vince Lombardi was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in the recent election. The former College of St. Thomas fullback, age 30, son of the late Green Bay Packer and Washington Redskin coach, will represent the Lino Lakes suburban area. Lombardi ran as a conservative, promising to protect Minnesota taxpayers from further increases, and supported regional government as opposed to the purely municipal variety. Defense and teamwork, you might say.

Chris Gartner, Indiana's soccer-style kicker, is Swedish and his father is a bishop at the University of Göteborg. Opportunely, his father not only was in the stands when Chris kicked four field goals against Wisconsin to set a Big Ten record but also overheard one fan exclaim: "That Gartner! He's some son of a bishop."

Before the Muhammad Ali-Bob Foster fight, a young waitress put a slip of paper in front of announcer Howard Cosell and said. "There's an elderly waitress here who wants your autograph but says she's too old for such things." Obliging with his signature, Cosell purred, "Tell your friend that at my present station in life, there is no lady alive who is too old for Howard Cosell."

Carmen Berra, Yogi's wife, was suffering fall complaint and not liking it. Immediately after the baseball season her husband rushed to Vermont to watch their son Timmy play for the University of Massachusetts. (Timmy caught a 57-yard touchdown pass.) He spent other weeks at home—well, sort of—watching his son Dale, a defensive back for the Montclair (N.J.) High School team. So when Carmen summoned Yogi on a recent Monday night and got only a grumpy "I'm watching a football game" for a reply, Carmen had had it. "You've been spending your whole life watching football", she snapped. Could it be that Carmen just hasn't been paying attention?

"I was talking when I should have been listening," national poker champion Amarillo Slim said in Idaho of his $31,000 bet that he could raft down the icy wilderness waters of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in late November. The bet seemed like a fine idea at the time he made it, but more proximate contemplation of 35 miles of freezing water and rocks exposed by the low late fall river suggested some reconsideration. Nonetheless Slim, also known as T.A. Preston Jr., not only went through with the trip but headed to Las Vegas to collect his winnings, along with his wet wits.

Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin, an environmentalist and physical-fitness buff, started last week on a 1,200-mile walking and running tour of his home state. And Proxmire is not even running again—uh, standing for reelection—-until 1976. He says he just wants to meet the people. He will start off with a 250-mile jaunt in the first nine days, running some and walking fast the rest of the time, hopefully on soft grass. Towns on the Senator's itinerary include South Milwaukee, Racine, Lead Mine, Hazel Green, Fair Play and, of course, Footville.

At Sewanee Academy of the University of the South, it seems that when you have one job you have 'em all. The Rev. Martin Luther Agnew has just submitted his resignation to the academy, which means the posts of chaplain, head of the department of religion, athletic director and assistant football coach are now vacant. What an opportunity to build character!

To say that Buddy Lutz, a funeral director, likes golf is much like saying that Jack Nicklaus plays the game a little. When Lutz' middle son Chip, age 17, won this year's Philadelphia Boys Amateur Golf Championship, no one paid a lot of attention—until someone noticed that Lutz' other golfing sons are named Wedge and Putter.

Ron Grable is a fortunate fellow with a number of assets. He is handsome, a bachelor and a graduate mechanical engineer. Beyond that, he grew up in Riverside, Calif. where he hopped up street rods with Dan Gurney and eventually became a pretty good racing driver himself. Now he has an even bigger asset—Kuwait oil sheik Kahlid Al-Nadji. Known in racing circles as Ali Baba, Al-Nadji decided to sponsor Grable at the Riverside Can-Am in late October. The car, unfortunately, was no Sopwith Camel. It was a Lola T-161 and Grable spun out on the 17th lap.

Joe Cascarella, five years a major league pitcher with five different teams, is now vice-president of Maryland's Laurel Race Course and finds the grass greener in his new pasture. "Baseball is ridiculous," he says. "In Australia they have huge flocks of sheep. They shear the sheep, the wool is made into yarn and the yarn into cloth. The cloth is woven into shirts, and on the front somebody sews letters that read 'Boston' or something. Forty thousand people sit in the stands watching the athletes who wear those shirts and screaming as if they begot them. The next year there are different athletes wearing those shirts, and the people scream as if they begot them. 'My athletes,' they yell. It's simpler dealing with horses."

Xavier (Ohio) University's poor struggling football team has it easy compared to the sportswriters covering it. The team features a Burby and a Burley, a Kneflin and a Knoppe, a Pfefferle and a Pfeiffer, a John White and a John Wright not to mention Ernie Wright, and, finally, a Jim Judge and an Ed Judge.

TWO PHOTOS