Scorecard

College Football
A Roll (out) Model

Last season's 66-3 rout by UCLA was the nadir of Texas quarterback Marty Cherry's career, as it was for most of his Longhorns teammates. Playing in relief of Richard Walton, Cherry, a redshirt sophomore, was sacked three times, fumbled twice and threw three interceptions, the last of which was returned 40 yards for the Bruins' final score. After one of the interceptions an ABC camera zoomed in for the standard dejection close-up. "It was my lowest moment as a player," Cherry says.

And his biggest break. Acclaimed fashion photographer Bruce Weber happened to be watching the game on TV and was struck by Cherry's—as the fashion press might say—smoldering good looks and gave him a call. Now the 21-year-old Cherry, who quit the Longhorns last November but who remains in school as a business major, makes an estimated six-figure salary modeling for Chaps. He has appeared in clothing ads in Esquire and Rolling Stone and on a billboard in Times Square, and has done runway shows for Versace in Milan. In SI's college football preview (Aug. 31) he appeared not, as he might have, in the analysis of Texas's prospects for this season but on page 115, holding a football in a Chaps ad.

Cherry, whose older brother Mike is a backup quarterback for the New York Giants, says he misses football and still roots for the Longhorns. He watched last Saturday's rematch with UCLA, which the Bruins won 49-31, and often wonders what might have been. "If I'd stayed, I could have competed for the starting job this year," he says, "but modeling was just too good an opportunity to pass up."

A week after last year's shellacking, Cherry watched a video of the game. He remembers his reaction when he saw the camera zoom in on his embarrassed face after that fateful interception. "I was like, Why are they showing me for so long!" Cherry says with a laugh. "Now I'm glad they did. If I had kept my helmet on, I don't know where I'd be right now."

McGwire's 62nd
Shot Heard Round the World

With his recent dinger deluge, Sammy Sosa made it clear that the Great Home Run Race of '98 is far from over. But no matter how many he and Mark McGwire end up with, it's unlikely we'll see the sort of hoopla that greeted Big Mac's historic 62nd tater. Herewith a compendium of McGwirania that may have gone unnoticed.

Were the Maris kids on hand?

The Hollywood Wax Museum in Branson, Mo., used wax from a melted-down statue of Roger Maris to construct one of McGwire for its sports-legends wing.

Was this Marge Schott's idea?