- Publish date:
19TH HOLE: THE READERS TAKE OVER
NO. 1 AND COMPANY
Sir:
Oklahoma! O.K. I agree with your No. 1 rating of the Sooners all the way (College Football '75, Sept. 8).
WILLIAM F. O'BRIEN
Cincinnati
Sir:
Re your Sept. 8 cover, I have found the flaw in Oklahoma football: the cheerleader has a hole in her uniform.
R.E. RHODES JR
Sumter, S.C.
Sir:
For a football team with a defense that gives its coach an "acute headache," the Missouri Tigers performed a miracle on Monday, Sept. 8 when they upset No. 2 Alabama 20-7 and had Bear Bryant reaching for the aspirin all evening.
RON JACKSON
Franklin, Ohio
Sir:
USC lost its first game last year and still ended up No. 1. Maybe this is a sign that Alabama will win a postseason bowl game.
M. GRADY
Nantucket, Mass.
Sir:
Sooners or later it will be Michigan in '75.
KEVIN P. BENNETT
Kalamazoo, Mich.
Sir:
The likes of Penn State, Florida, Texas and Texas A&M finishing higher than Notre Dame? Never.
BILL GORMAN
Chicago
ARCHIE AND FAMILY
Sir:
Add me to the long list of fans who want to see Archie Griffin become the first player to be awarded two Heisman Trophies (Good Man in the Long Run, Sept. 8). He is the personification of the amateur athlete's creed: desire, dedication and determination.
TOM SEARSON
Sherman Oaks, Calif.
Sir:
I read of the unselfish achievements of James Griffin Sr., "where he established a punishing routine that he still follows, working 20 hours a day. He manned a sanitation truck by day, worked in a steel foundry at night and served as a janitor in a high school in the wee hours between." I don't wish to minimize Archie's gridiron feats, but when it comes to the presentation of another Heisman Trophy, I would cast my vote for his father.
C.T. COFFEY
Santa Monica, Calif.
Sir:
Archie Griffin deserved the Heisman Trophy, but your interesting article did not explain that although he was only the fifth player in football history to win the Heisman as a junior, he had already completed three years of varsity football while Roger Staubach, Vic Janowicz, Doak Walker and Doc Blanchard had completed but two. Archie played varsity ball in his freshman year.
Also, Ed Marinaro rushed for 4,715 yards in three years of varsity play. Archie has already completed three years and is 895 yards short of that total. Griffin is a great football player, but in the interest of fair play these facts ought to be mentioned.
SIDNEY J. RABINOWITZ
Brooklyn
•At the time of his 1948 Heisman award, SMU's Doak Walker had also played three years of varsity football, beginning as a wartime freshman in 1945.—ED.
IVY OR BIG TEN?
Sir:
Many thanks for the warmhearted look at Ivy League football (Yesterday Is Not Far Away, Sept. 8). While your interest in the social conventions associated with the Ivy game is excessive, the basic merit of the game as a quality amateur sport came through nicely. Ivy teams have two things going for them that make them fun to watch: a solid corps of scholar-athletes from all over the country, providing at least strong first-team units; and some of the most innovative and able coaches at the college level. To cite one example, Joe Restic and his assistants at Harvard produce teams that play highly sophisticated, wide-open football on both sides of the line.
Cynics will insist that the Ivy League is bush. In a way, they are right. Other conferences and teams are better. But the Ivy game is unabashedly (and proudly) amateur, in contrast to the semipro orientation of the "big time." Which is preferable is a personal judgment. I, for one, would rather watch the NFL for pro football and the Ivies for the college game.
JOHN O. FIELD
Chestnut Hill, Mass.
Sir:
Big Ten folks are a trifle tired of this holier-than-thou Ivy jazz, the constant harping on hoary age and tradition. Just for openers, Cornell was founded in 1865, its first president, Dr. Andrew White, having previously served as a professor of history at the University of Michigan.
Re the simon-pure Ivy recruiting, don't let George Plimpton put you on. The Big Ten certainly has overemphasized football, but the Ivy League regularly takes fine high school players from many areas. The caliber of Ivy gridders is shown by such pros as Mike Pyle, Ed Marinaro, Calvin Hill, Dick Jauron, the luckless Pat McInally and, earlier, Chuck Bednarik.
I'd love to see college football back where it was when I was collecting a gimpy knee and no letter at Ann Arbor, when the boys played both ways and the perquisites and recruiting were low-key. Meanwhile, let old Cantab Plimpton remember that a jock usually is a jock anywhere—except perhaps at MIT and the University of Chicago.
WHIT HILLYER
Evanston, Ill.
Sir:
For better or worse, college football is as much a part of the American scene as the ups and downs of Wall Street. A well-rounded education is supposed to be the goal of students at our educational institutions and I believe that being a part of an Ohio State-Michigan week offers something in that direction.
B. GEORGE NEHLSEN
Dallas
THE KID
Sir:
As a 39-year-old banker in Philadelphia, I am a long way from the time when I was 16, growing up in Rhode Island and paying my way into Lincoln Downs to bet $2 on Tony DeSpirito, also 16, and a "lock." in the feature. Frank Deford's article on Tony (The Kid Who Ran into Doors, Sept. 1) was sheer poetry, as classical as the Kid's riding style. To those of us raised in New England in the '50s, DeSpirito brought the winner we were seeking while our much-loved Red Sox kept stumbling at the gate.
DONALD M. GLEKLEN
Newton Square, Pa.
Sir:
Tony DeSpirito deserved Frank Deford's moving eulogy. You could add dozens to the list of athletes who were cut down by Dame Misfortune, but for openers try Tucker Fredrickson, Karl Spooner, Maurice Stokes and Tony Conigliaro. As John Greenleaf Whit-tier said in Maud Mailer, "For of all sad words of tongue or pen/ The saddest are these: 'It might have been!' "
TONY NATELLI
LOUIS NATELLI
Howard Beach, N.Y.
NO BLUE RIBBON
Sir:
This time you have outdone yourselves. I refer to FACES IN THE CROWD (Sept. 1), in which you include the remarkable sporting achievement of Ch. Jo-Ni's Red Baron of Crofton winning some dog shows.
First, I believe you owe an apology to all the athletes you pictured for implying that their accomplishments are on a par with a terrier winning 60 doggie blue ribbons, or whatever it is they get.
Second, I have been in many crowds and I have never seen a face which looked anything like that.
Third, if your magazine regards that as sport, then it's time we tear down all the goalposts, drain the sand from our punching bags, pave over our golf courses and use our copies of SI to paper the bottom of the birdcage. SI has gone to the dogs.
DENNIS J. BIRD
Trenton, N.J.
SUPER MENUS
Sir:
The New Orleans Superdome's restaurants (SCORECARD, Sept. 8) can't be that super without such delicacies as:
Oysters on the Halftime, Charlie Sanders Kentucky-Fried Chicken, Detroit Lionnaise Potatoes, Bill Bergeyburgers on Cincinnati Bengals, Mercury Morrismallow Sundaes and, the Buffalo Bills' favorite backup dessert, Lemon Marangi Pie.
BRUCE M. COHEN
Virginia Beach, Va.
Sir:
I am surprised they didn't include Los Angeles Ram Chops.
JIM WORTHINGTON
San Geronimo, Calif.
Sir:
Forward Pasta, Coin-Tossed Salad, Pizza Gogolak, Dallascatessen, Kansas City Cheese, Super Sundae, Dick Butkustard and Roger Staubroccoli.
What is Hash Mark?
BOB CAUEN
Hubbard, Ohio
Address editorial mail to SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, TIME & LIFE Building, Rockefeller Center, New York, N.Y. 10020.
