1976

A bicentennial parade of stats: Carter, 297 electoral votes; Ford, 240. Six million view the Tall Ships in New York. Mark (the Bird) Fidrych wins 19 games, talks to 329 balls. Indiana's NCAA basketball champs go 32-0. The Reds, Raiders, Celtics, Canadiens and Tony Dorsett's Pitt Panthers also put up winning numbers.

IN SI'S WORDS
A SPECIAL CHILD

There are so many athletes at the Olympics and so many winners, but in the first week there was only one star, a child named Nadia Comaneci. She has a lean boy's body that responds to all her demands and a valentine face with straight, dark eyebrows that pierce it like Cupid's arrow. Her lips are faint and thin, lost beneath dusky, soulful eyes that caused many of those who studied her to imagine that she must be some brooding, mysterious Carpathian princess....

She was superbly cast for the moment, bursting upon the world with the first perfect Olympic gymnastic score, a 10.0, on the first day of competition, thereby dramatically ridding Montreal of much of the rancor and turmoil of international politics. Nadia Comaneci (Nad-ya Koh-ma-netch) was brilliant and beguiling, and because of her youth a great sense of hope and history was instantly attached to her.
—FRANK DEFORD

INCIDENTALLY
WAR ON ICE
The Philadelphia Flyers' reputation for roughness on ice is hitting home. As a local TV sportscaster told of a brawl between the Flyers and the Atlanta Flames, the film clip showed a scene from the Angola civil war.

Andy Messersmith is baseball's first free agent.

Downhill gold for daredevil Franz Klammer at Innsbruck.

Decathlon gold for heartthrob Bruce Jenner in Montreal.

Prince markets a king-sized racket.

WE'RE NO. 1
Nelson Rockefeller

The NBA absorbs four ABA teams and, not least, Dr. J.

Fidrych and a feathered friend.

A Super catch by the Steelers' Lynn Swann.

EIGHT PHOTOS

ILLUSTRATION

"Now that I'm in Detroit I'd like to change my name to Abdul Automobile."
—M.L. CARR, DETROIT PISTON FORWARD