Skip to main content

PEOPLE

When Eddie Sutton left Creighton University to become the new basketball coach at Arkansas, his family stayed behind in Omaha so that the children could finish school there. In the absence of Father, who was busy recruiting and getting his program established, one of Sutton's young sons started slipping into his mother's bed at night. Sutton consulted his old college psychology texts and, on one of his visits home, advised the youngster that though he might be lonesome and a bit afraid, the practice would have to stop. Well, Sutton finally got settled in Fayetteville, and on the first day of his summer basketball clinic his wife arrived from Omaha with the brood. In fact, Sutton was standing in front of the field house talking with about 10 high school coaches when Sean, his youngest son, yelled out the car window, "Hey, Dad, nobody slept with Mother while you were gone."

Colleen O'Connor, who is running for Congress as a Democrat in San Diego County District, displayed her interest in ecology by taking a two-mile swim in the Pacific Ocean to protest a proposal that offshore oil wells be drilled in Southern California. On emerging, she delivered a toweling-off line. "If I can handle the sharks in the Pacific," she said, "I might be able to handle the jellyfish in politics."

Teetotaling Gary Player asked for a glass of water during practice for the Hartford Open, and things began to happen. An attendant mistakenly handed him a gin and tonic, Player threw it down in one gulp, and then he got drunk—immediately. "Absolutely drunk," Player swears. "I couldn't see. My mouth wouldn't work right. I couldn't hit a practice ball or putt. I went home and slept until a quarter to six. When you don't drink, it hits you that way." When the tournament began. Player still seemed thoroughly under the influence. He finished in a tie for 52nd.

A straw vote for the Vice Presidency, taken at the Lane County Fair in Eugene, Ore. before the President made his choice, conferred the nomination on local favorite Senator Mark Hatfield, followed by Nelson Rockefeller, Barry Goldwater, Elliot Richardson and Ronald Reagan. Evel Knievel ran a dead-even race with Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy. Out of 6,500 ballots cast, each received eight.

Al Collins, general manager of the Baltimore Comets of the North American Soccer League, has announced that the club will remain in Baltimore next season despite offers from two other cities. Collins rejected outright a bid from some Dallas men representing an unnamed city in Florida. And he says he didn't find the other deal too enticing, either. It was from Custer City, Okla. "I found Oklahoma on the map," Collins says. "But I couldn't find Custer City."

Beagle Oil. That's what Orioles Ross Grimsley and Jim Palmer had rubbed on their arms before some recent pitching successes, according to reports in a Baltimore paper. Angry beagle buffs soon were heard from. "I'm appalled at the thought of this cannibalistic thing you do to poor pups just to make your elbow-greasy," one outraged animal lover wrote. "I find the use of this oil a serious threat to the world's beagle population. Any further use will force me to contact the SPCA." The letter was signed, "Snoopy, an ex-fan." Trainer Ralph Salvon (that's really his name) soothed the correspondent by explaining that the stuff in question, an ointment used on racehorses and greyhounds, is actually "Bigeloil." Grimsley and Palmer are now out of the doghouse.

Two men using their heads? Well, Oscar Gamble, Cleveland Indian outfielder, doesn't really seem to need all that hair projecting from under his cap in order to protect himself from injury. And Tom Higgins, starting middle guard for North Carolina State, could perhaps use more padding than his "S" for State tonsure.

Bob Lilly's Cowboy Insider is published weekly in Dallas to satisfy fans who do not get enough information about the Cowboys in the daily papers to sate their appetites. Recently the subscription department received an order from a resident of the Oklahoma State Prison. The check was made out to Bob Lilly's Outsider. A Freudian slip?

Shifting from the slopes to the sea, Jean-Claude Killy tried the liquid version of skiing off the Cote d'Azur. Ignominiously, he wound up with a broken nose. Those briny moguls just don't stay stationary.

The winless Detroit Wheels were having trouble finding a home, but one of their poor coaches was at least as badly off. Owen Dejanovich, the defensive line coach, was living in the basement of the home of another Detroit assistant, Chick Harris. "People won't lease to me when they hear I'm with the Wheels," says Dejanovich, who recently left Vancouver of the Canadian Football League to seek a better life in the WFL. "Three times I've made deposits and three times they've given my money back. Once I offered the people $1,700. That was two months' rent plus the deposit, which is a lot of money." With classes about to begin, Dejanovich, father of three schooll-age children, has his wife "looking into motels with kitchenettes."

Middle Linebacker Paul Glanton of the University of Minnesota is a notable strong man. Glanton says he developed the tremendous power in his arms and upper torso by weight lifting—and operatic singing. Last winter he played the lead, Don Alfonso, in the university's production of Cost Fan Tune, and his long-range goal is to make the big league by playing with the New York Met. In fact, he has already worked out with the Met once. "In singing, you exercise to increase your chest cavity and diaphragm muscles," Glanton says. "There's a tie-in with football conditioning."

TWO PHOTOS