PEOPLE
After years of trying, Richard Nixon has finally made it in football. He was elected president of the New York chapter of the Eastern Association of Intercollegiate Football Officials. L. Richard Nixon, that is, of the Granby, Conn. Nixons.
You'd hardly expect to find Bobby Riggs and Rosie Casals together in Love, American Style. But there they were, the two biggest mouths of tennis' battle of the sexes, filming a forthcoming segment of the popular television comedy. "We're picked up in a small town and thrown into jail for drag racing," says Casals of the plot. "We have to spend the night together, and we're constantly competing: staring, arm wrestling, eyeball-to-eyeball poker. Next day the judge sentences us to 30 days. Bobby dares him to make it 31. He does. I say, "Make it 35.' Bobby says two years. I say 15 years. Bobby gets it up to 50 and he wins." Off the plot, sounds like a good idea.
Ohio State's Woody Hayes, pledged to secrecy before the official announcement of his team's selection as Big Ten representative at the Rose Bowl, found a way to inform his wife anyway. "I telephoned her and hummed a few bars of California, Here I Come," Hayes admitted. "I didn't say a single word, though. I just hung up." Wife probably thought it was one of those heavy breathers who happened to have a musical bent.
Even the biggest linebackers did not scare Bowdoin College's Dave Caras, who may be the only halfback this year to be chased by an angry rhinoceros. "Fortunately," says Caras in explaining his alltime broken-field performance, "a rhino's eyesight is not too good, so I got away by dodging between trees and leading him into narrow areas where he couldn't follow." The episode occurred during a summer job at a big-game exhibit in New Jersey, but did nothing to squash Caras' fascination with endangered—if dangerous—species. Nephew of Roger Caras, a naturalist, wildlife writer and TV showman, Caras says cheetahs are his favorites. "I can sit in their cages and play with them for hours," he says. "They're like big dogs. You have to be a little more careful with leopards, though." Of course.
On the face of it, Ada Steinmetz did not seem an entirely implausible candidate for a Rhodes scholarship. The 21-year-old LaSalle College senior carried a 3.88 grade-point average as a German major, was outstanding in four sports (basketball, tennis, volleyball and field hockey), was self-taught in Latin and fluent in Spanish, worked as a photographer for the college yearbook, was elected resident dorm adviser, had already done some graduate work and was called "a terrific leader with a lot of enthusiasm" by sponsoring LaSalle Golf Coach Jack Connors. The Rhodes people politely returned the application, noting that the published rules of eligibility were not satisfied. One criterion that the committee refrained from mentioning was that a recipient should possess "qualities of manhood." Score a zero for the would-be Rhodes scholar on that test.
Look out, Captain Hook. Cathy Rigby, the pretty blonde U.S. Olympic gymnast, has been signed to play the role of Peter Pan in a huge, extravagantly staged musical version of the old classic. Produced by NBC, Peter Pan will tour 42 cities as a live show, playing the biggest arenas, with a cast of over 100 and complete staging of Never Never Land. The director interviewed 1,000 actresses for the starring role of "the boy who wouldn't grow up" before settling on Cathy, who can almost do those flying scenes without wires. Still, one wonders if Rigby is not miscast. At 93 pounds and 4'11¾" she would have made a perfect Tinker Bell.
Retired American League Umpire Emmett Ashford, the first black to ump in the majors, recalled the story of how Leo Durocher tested him in an exhibition game in Ashford's first year. On a disputed play, Durocher told Ashford to "get some help" from another umpire, John Rice, who is white. Rice told Ashford he had made the right call.
"Well, what have we got?" Durocher asked when Ashford came back. "You got it in black and white," Ashford said gleefully.
Adeline Daley, writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, says that free nurseries are largely responsible for the boom in women's participation in certain sports. "I would have gone out for polo, roller derby, drag racing, motorcycling, scuba diving or six-day bicycle riding if they offered free nurseries," she says. "The one drawback is that they insist mothers make all diaper changes. I ask you, can you imagine Rick Barry at the free-throw line or Jack Nicklaus at the U.S. Open ready to sink a putt for $100,000, and being called over the public-address system to come to the nursery immediately to change baby?"
Football is gaining popularity in Japan. The rising fervor may be gauged by the fact that the owner and manager of the Osaka Sidewinders, Tatsuhiko Mori, has a son named Unitas Mori.
Kay Albert, wife of Towson State College Football Coach Phil Albert, says that her husband is normally fairly neat but that he's a terror to clean up after during the football season. "Phil is always writing football plays on little scraps of paper," she explains. "On napkins, on everything. I go around all day finding little slips with X's and O's on them. I'm afraid to throw them away. Knowing my luck, it would probably be the game plan for Saturday."
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