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PEOPLE
When Northeastern Oklahoma A&M elevated its fourth-string quarterback to a starting role against Baptist Bible College of Springfield, Mo., it may not have been big news outside of Miami, Okla. But then the reserve threw three touchdown passes in a 95-0 rout. His name: John Rockne, grandson of Knute. That was news.
Defensive Back Ted Vactor is a Redskin basically because he is a football fan. "Four years ago I had quit the game and was working for a company that transferred me to Washington," the former Nebraska Cornhusker says. "One day I went into the Redskin office and tried to buy tickets. 'We're all sold out,' the man behind the counter said, 'but I'll put you on the list—3,456th.' So I went upstairs and ran into the director of player personnel. He told me I ought to play again. But what sold me was that he offered me a job with the Virginia Sailors and mentioned that each player there got two free tickets to the Redskin games."
For those who are keeping score, the Libbers' newest triumph occurs nightly in San Diego. Nancy Carter, 22, runs the 30-second clock for the ABA franchise there and also handles the personal-foul paddles. A Kentucky Colonel fan before moving to San Diego, Ms. Carter has had only two problems. Once the clock blew a fuse, and she had to carry on with a stopwatch. Once, much worse, a referee asked to hold her hand during a time-out.
Oklahoma's prized Selmon brothers—Lucious, a Big Eight selection at tackle, and freshmen LeRoy and Dewey—all credit hog wrestling for their football ability. One of Lucious' chores down on the family farm was to grab hogs so that his brothers could insert rings in their noses. "The hogs varied from baby pigs to 400-pounders," Lucious says. "We had to keep them penned up, because if they got out they might eat one of us up. A hog has no sense. He just runs straight at you. Hogs are easier to get ahold of than, say, Nebraska's Johnny Rodgers."
Dan Pritchard is the name and flame is his game. Besides football, that is. The 230-pound Pritchard, a fullback for Pacific Lutheran University, led the Northwest Conference in rushing for most of the year. He is also a school record holder in the shotput and discus. But what's really cool is that he's an authentic Samoan flame dancer. Some guys have talent to burn.
No sooner had the excitement died away over Princess Anne's driving—would she or wouldn't she become the first publicly prosecuted member of the royalty since Charles I (she wouldn't, being let off with a mere warning for speeding)—than she again lost her head and gained headlines. This time she went fox hunting, which is widely condemned as a "blood sport" in Britain, not once but three times, all at the invitation of Lieutenant Mark Phillips, British Olympic equestrian and an officer in the First Battalion Queen's Dragoon Guards. The outcry was fearful. "Animal lovers were appalled that the Princess appears to be able to do no better with her leisure time than to help beat the daylights out of foxes," snapped the chairman of the League Against Cruel Sports. And William Price, Labor M.P. from Rugby, of all places, questioned her interest in sports, advising her to..."give a little less time to masters of foxhounds and a little more to the lads on the shop floor."
Actor Guy Madison, who had phenomenal success riding bucking broncos as television's Wild Bill Hickok in the 1950s, wound up in the hoosegow in San Jose, Calif. after—police said—he was thrown by a bar stool.
In a new book the Jets' Weeb Ewbank goes into stunning detail about Baltimore's memorable back-to-back championships when he was coaching the Colts in 1958 and 1959. In fact, describing the easier 31-16 win of '59, he devotes several sentences to Cornerback Bobby Boyd, his strengths, his weaknesses and his value to the team. Which is fine, except that at the time of the game Boyd was just beginning to simmer down after a smoldering year as the University of Oklahoma quarterback. He did not join the Colts until 1960.
Art Linkletter's wife Lois was inspecting her new home in Bel Air when she opened a closet and noticed a pair of golf shoes on the floor. Thinking the previous owner had left them, she tried to pick them up, but they would not budge. The golf shoes, it seems, were camouflage for a trapdoor covering a secret compartment used to hide jewelry.
Flamboyant Washington sports-caster Warner Wolf went into great detail on several of his shows when Redskin Quarterback Sonny Jurgensen tore his Achilles" tendon. "Imagine that," Wolf told his listeners. "No one even hit him. Just a pop—snap—and Sonny is out for the year." Well, Sunday morning Wolf, 35, was playing quarterback in an "old man's" touch football league. He rolled out to pass, couldn't find a receiver and started to run. Pop. Snap. Wolf fell just short of the goal line, thinking he had been tagged on the heel. When he looked around, no one was there. Immediately, he knew what had happened. He had—yes, indeed—snapped his Achilles' tendon.
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