PEOPLE
Miami Beach grade school principal Dr. Von Beebe, 32, had always had what he called "this Walter Mitty thing" about boxing. Spurred on by some of his pupils, Beebe entered the Golden Gloves tournament. He proved a less than apt student of the sport, got thoroughly boxed about the ears and lost on a TKO in the second round. Beebe said he was still happy he had done it, just for the principal involved.
Kurt Vonnegut says his body's O.K. Back in his native Indianapolis to accept an award, the novelist also addressed the student body at his old high school, Shortridge. It was not the usual homecoming. "Some very authentically nasty things happened here," Vonnegut said. "I'm still sore at some people I knew at Shortridge. I was a weak guy then, real tall and skinny. The football coach, at my senior dance, gave out funny prizes. What I was given, in front of my classmates, was a subscription for a Charles Atlas muscle-building course. I didn't think it was very damned funny. I thought it was an obscene thing for him to do." Vonnegut said he got his "revenge" two years ago. He called Information, got the coach's telephone number and called him. "I explained briefly to him who I was and why I was calling," the prizewinner said. "Then I told him, 'You s.o.b., my body turned out all right after all.' Then I hung up." Pleased, no doubt, that his body had matured.
Bill Andreas, Ohio State's refreshing sophomore basketball star, is becoming something of a fixture in the public prints. An agriculture economics major who grew up on a farm, Andreas got his latest ink bath when he refused Coach Fred Taylor's advice to sit out the game with Michigan despite serious sinus and virus problems. "Doesn't matter how you feel, the cows have to be milked," he told Taylor. Taylor milked that for so much publicity that Andreas thought it was time to dry up. "My buddies named me Dairy Farmer of the Month," he said.
Willie Davis has found a new field of unpredictability in which to star. In his capacity as a dedicated Buddhist the Dodger outfielder visited the great head temple of the Nichiren Shoshu sect. Nichiren Shoshu is a blend of 13th century Buddhism and 20th century Power of Positive Thinking. Willie's wife Gina, a convert of three years, got him to join up, a move, Davis says, he has never regretted. He adds: "Look, I was never a great home-run hitter. I got only 10 in the 1971 season. But last year I hit 19. That's because I chanted my prayers every morning and night and even before every game." Praying with him were two other Dodger converts: Outfielder Willie Crawford and Second Baseman Lee Lacy, and California Angel Shortstop Bobby Valentine. So what about the drop in Davis' batting average? "Well, I didn't pray hard enough," Willie replied.
When London's Anne Pashley was a little girl she had bronchial asthma and a doctor suggested that it would be good for her to take up singing or athletics. Miss Pashley did both. First she became a runner, setting a women's record for 100 yards and winning a silver medal in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. Then abruptly, after the Olympics, she gave up the sport and became a principal singer for the Royal Opera. She still has a standing bet with opera producer Colin Graham, a former schoolboy champion, on a proposed race around the Aldeburgh, England opera house.
Burt Reynolds' favorite place on his Florida ranch is his tree house. But the tree house is not exactly rustic, or even particularly arboreal. Its stairs wind up a brick center column, and it includes a master bedroom, a large living room area, a Japanese bath, a kitchen, an enclosed porch and a wooden walkway to a gazebo. The tree house overlooks a lake stocked with imitation ducks. "I plan to raise the level of the lake so the tree house will become an island," the actor says. "There'll be a drawbridge, chains, and all that. I'd put alligators in if I didn't have friends with kids who like to swim here." Go ahead, Burt. The alligators won't be very dangerous after swallowing a couple of imitation ducks.
Johnny Unitas, Jerry Lucas, Ron Swoboda and Joe Frazier announced the expansion of a program called No Greater Love, in which athletes sent 4,000 gifts to about 1,000 children of Americans captured or missing in Vietnam. "We hope now to reach all those whose fathers lost their lives in Indochina," Unitas said. And for returning POWs Commissioner Bowie Kuhn ruled they will receive lifetime passes to baseball games.
To celebrate his last day on the job Announcer Terry Bagaus of radio station KABR in Aberdeen, S. Dak. offered a free record album to any girl who showed up at the studio in a bathing suit. Despite a temperature of 27°, 48 females ranging in age from three to 35 appeared within a short time. And they aren't so dumb in Aberdeen. Three young men also got down to the studio in record time.
THREE PHOTOS