19TH HOLE: THE READERS TAKE OVER

BATHING BEAUTIES
Sir:
Congratulations on one of your finest issues (Jan. 16). Sooper Dooper was one of the best football articles I have ever read and made me glad to be a baseball fan. Joe Marshall's Super Bowl preview (The Orange Is Doomed To Be Crushed) was thoroughly enlightening and, being a fan of Atlanta teams. I felt right at home with Princeton's 1-22 hockey team (Practice Didn't Make Perfect). To top it off. you gave us bathing suits—and girls (Brazil Is Really Perking). Bravo!
JOHN A. BOWERS JR.
Tallahassee, Fla.

Sir.
Who says Friday the 13th is unlucky? That's the day we received your annual swim-suit issue. It's the best thing that's happened since night baseball. The mailman was surrounded by admirers of Cheryl Tiegs and Christie Brinkley. anxious for a glimpse of this year's beauties. The pictures were a welcome diversion for a houseful of guys trapped at school during semester break.
THE MEN OF LAMBDA CHI ALPHA
William Jewell College
Liberty, Mo.

Sir:
The temperature was minus 14°F., but in the mail came the Jan. 16 issue of SI and the Gurney spring seed catalog. I knew right then that I would make it through another Minnesota winter.
DUKE HUST
Minnetonka, Minn.

Sir:
Thank you for making a cold Wisconsin winter "bareable."
BILL SKROCH
Wausau, Wis.

Sir:
Allow us to be among the first to vole for Sportswoman of the Year 1978: intrepid Cheryl Tiegs. Amen! And awoman!
BILL LAPPIN
JOHN McGILVRAY
DANIEL KNIGHT
Brookline, Mass.

Sir:
The Brazilians are coming! The Brazilians are coming!
STEVE CHAPMAN
Bryan, Ohio

Sir:
In addition to the beautiful women there was some excellent photography by Walter Iooss Jr.
SAM JOHNSON
Bethesda, Md.

Sir:
My God, are you in trouble! Your swim-suit issue was never barer or better. I can hardly wait for the letters.
LARRY KIMBALL
Syracuse, N.Y.

Sir:
After perusing the annual swimsuit issue, especially the cover, I wonder how soon the models will wear nothing at all.
EDMUND B. OLCHOWSKI
Greenfield, Mass.

Sir:
My wife is not only threatening divorce. but to cancel my SI subscription.
GARY WEST
Tampa

Sir:
I was disgusted. No decent person would be caught wearing a few of the suits you pictured. I can't understand why a very good sports magazine feels it has to compete with trashy magazines and to stoop to their level.
KATHY JONES
Chicago Heights, Ill.

Sir:
Shame on you. and shame on Cheryl Tiegs.
MADELYN AND JOSEPH GOUGH
Hicksville, N.Y.

Sir:
In the past, Jule Campbell has done a commendable job on the swimsuit issue. This year I think you lost your good judgment. In 1977 a reader complained because he felt that Cheryl Tiegs wasn't shown enough. In 1978 this reader is complaining because she feels that Cheryl was overexposed. In my view, Miss Tiegs has no class left, and neither does SI's swimsuit issue.
JANIE CAMMIN
Saginaw, Mich.

Sir:
Your First Amendment right to publish? Certainly. Illustrated? I'll say! Sports? Sure couldn't find any. A sports magazine with girlie spreads in our home? No, thank you. Cancel.
JAMES A. BUCKLEY
Omaha, Neb.

Sir:
I refuse to put the Jan. 16 issue on the library rack for students in grades one through eight. How do you justify the article? Students today watch enough television shows that depict people wearing the bare minimum. Must they also be exposed to reading materials that do the same thing?
ALICE DELANEY
St. Ann School
Gloucester, Mass.

Sir:
When I want Playboy, I'll buy Playboy.
H. U. WAGGENER, M.D.
Denver

Sir:
I would like to know why you chose to feature only women's swimwear.
K. WILLIAMS
Chamblee, Ga.

Sir:
I thought the issue was just fantastic!
MARILYN HERRMANN
Rock Hall, Md.

Sir:
The Lady Volunteers of the University of Tennessee had two major basketball victories—over top-ranked North Carolina State and Delta State—that week. Get with it. The Lady Vols deserved the cover. At least they are involved in a sport.
MONIKA ELDRIDGE
Knoxville, Tenn.

Sir.
Who are you trying to kid? Your readers can see through your swimwear coverage.
DAVID WILKNER
Providence

GRANDMA'S GAME
Sir.
First, let me praise SI for its coverage of women's basketball. However. I must take exception to your recent article on Carol Blazejowski (No One Is Hotter than the Blaze, Jan. 2). Kent Harmon implies that "the women's game has not yet evolved to a level" that demands that its players be skilled both offensively and defensively.

Women played organized basketball for a long time before SI "discovered" the sport. My grandmother, Ruthanna Dorsey Fickel, who turned 90 on Jan. 15, used to make headlines in the Indianapolis papers with 30-point-plus games and terrific defense. A mere 5'1", she used to jump center and play in the middle on defense. They played full-court, with five persons, on her Crawfordsville (Ind.) High School team. When my mother played, the court was divided into three zones: one for guards, one for forwards, with the middle strip for the centers. I played one year of "rover" ball in college, with two players (called rovers) able to cross the center dividing line, until we "progressed" to the five-person, full-court game of my grandmother's time.

Women's basketball has come a long way. but the fact remains that it is a team sport that demands a complete player who can guard and assist as well as score.
MELANIE MOORE YOUNGER
Versailles, Ky.

GORGEOUS GUSSIE
Sir:
Whenever I read a disparaging remark about Gussie Moran's ability to play tennis, such as Jack Kramer's comparison of Gussie with Pauline Betz (A Little Hanky-Panky, but No Fixes, Jan. 9), I think of an afternoon at Forest Hills in September 1946. A fourth-round match between the top-seeded Betz and an unknown. Moran, looked like a breeze for Betz. But the young Moran had the stadium in an uproar as she took the second set in the gathering twilight. It was the only set that Betz lost in the entire tournament.

Kramer sure hit the nail on the head in Part I of his article (So Everything Was Jake, Jan. 2) when he called Bobby Riggs the most underrated champion of all time.

Thanks for a couple of great articles.
LANDON C. MANNING
Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

PING-PONG PROGRESS
Sir:
In his article (An Affront of a Backhand, Jan. 2) Dick Miles told of the O'Neill family-spending about $10,000 a year to take their son Sean to table-tennis tournaments. In mentioning promising junior players, however. Miles overlooked perhaps the most promising junior ever to play table tennis in the Northwest, Jen-Hsun Huang. In sharp contrast to Sean, Jen-Hsun earns his money to travel to tournaments, to take part in clinics and to play table tennis by scrubbing floors here at the Paddle Palace. He is a straight-A student and very hungry to become a table-tennis champion. He has played only three months, but I suggest you watch out for him in another year.
LOU BOCHENSKI
Paddle Palace
Portland, Ore.

Sir:
Dick Miles' excellent article accurately reflects the state of table tennis in this country. The sport has achieved legitimacy. Even though we are far from international supremacy, the accomplishments of the men's and women's teams and the No. 35 ranking of Danny Seemiller seem miraculous when one considers a budget of $50,000. In contrast. China will spend $6 million for just" one Friendship Asian-African Championship table tennis outing. Current youth interest in table tennis makes me optimistic that the U.S. will rise to greater heights on the international scene.
HOUSHANG BOZORGZADEH
Captain
U.S. Men's Team
Independence, Iowa

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