Me being 6-4, I accepted this news with the height of smugness. Our two greatest American leaders, Washington and Lincoln, were exceptionally tall, and right up until the end of the American century -- the tall century -- it was unusual for the shorter presidential candidate ever to win. Indeed, given what a mess of things the shorter choice -- George W. Bush -- has made of his presidency in the fat century, Hilary Clinton's main obstacle may not be that she's a woman, but that she's shorter than most men. We gotta stand tall again.

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In sports, though, the best athletes still get taller. Could mighty mites such as Ben Hogan or Rod Laver ever rule their sports again? Some basketball guards are the size of centers of a couple generations ago. Cal Ripken Jr., who just went into the Hall of Fame, might best be known for his iron-man credentials, but his lasting influence was to prove that a shortstop could be a tall stop.

Nonetheless, since I am sure us lofty folk are also more fair and decent than the rest of you pipsqueaks, honesty compels me to offer this grudging addendum to the Princeton study. That is, it is the little guys who invariably end up running sports. How to explain this? I call it the Coxswain Authority -- coxswain being the pee wee who sits forward in the back of the scull and just screams at the giant rowers who are sitting backward and doing all the hard work: "stroke, stroke, stroke ..."

The Coxswain Authority is especially, ironically, evident in basketball. Hoop coaches are invariably little guys. Oh, occasionally a forward like Phil Jackson or Don Nelson becomes a successful coach, but the really big guys are still thought of as mindless goons. Coaches in other sports likewise incline toward the diminutive, regress toward the mean.

Generally, we just assume the little players, the pepperpots, the playmakers are the brains of the outfits. As a tall person, I say it is time to end this gross discrimination in sports and let tall people have their rightfully ordained place, smartly running games, the way we run everything else so well.