Letters

REPEAT CHAMPS?
That was a fascinating analysis of the Los Angeles Lakers' chances to repeat as NBA champions (The Dread R Word, April 18). However, you omitted a discussion of the biggest obstacle in their path: the Bird factor.
PAUL MARINI
Lynn, Mass.

SIR SLAM
Amen to Dave Wohl's article about Darryl Dawkins (Manchild in the NBA, April 11). Dawkins realizes perhaps better than anyone else that he is in the entertainment business. When you combine Darryl's athletic skills with his sense of humor and imagination, who is to say that he hasn't far surpassed his potential?

I hope Dawkins has a lot more than five years remaining in pro basketball, either on a court or behind a microphone, because I miss him. I suspect others do, too.
JOHN BERG
New York City

Regarding Darryl Dawkins and unfulfilled potential, I am reminded of the words of Coleridge: "By what I have effected, am I to be judged by my fellow-men; what I could have done, is a question for my own conscience."
SEAN M. MEHEGAN
Brookline, Mass.

OLYMPIC PRIZE MONEY
I find little to support Kenny Moore's suggestion (POINT AFTER, March 28) that today's top U.S. marathoners may be compromised in their devotion to athletic excellence in the Olympic trials because of prize money. I've talked with nearly all of those who will compete in the trials, and their respect for the event is as intense as that of the Olympic contenders who have gone before them. The difference is that this time around potential Olympians can concentrate on the trials without having to flirt with financial ruin.

Does Moore really believe that going to a banquet two days before the trials to show sponsors and organizers some gratitude for financial support is going to "hemorrhage the legs or alter the values" of top runners? American runners may be suffering from a lot of things—desultory interest among the powers that be, media indifference to their sport, fiercer international competition and insufficient control of performance drugs internationally. Money paid in the Olympic trials, though, isn't one of them.
DON KARDONG
President, Association of Road Racing Athletes
Spokane

?Kardong finished fourth in the 1976 Olympic marathon.—ED.

DIVIDED LOYALTIES
The caption to the picture of Bob and Elizabeth Dole at the NCAA Final Four (A One Man Show, April 11) states that the Doles were "savoring the victory over Duke" by Kansas. While that may have been true of the senator, who attended Kansas in 1941-42 and '42-43 before going off to fight with the Army in World War II, the same surely cannot be said of his wife, the former secretary of transportation. She graduated from Duke, and is shown wearing a LET'S GO DUKE button and a GO DUKE button in the photograph to which the caption refers.
JENNIFER COLAPIETRO
Cambridge, Mass.

CANTERBURY TALE
I enjoyed Austin Murphy's coverage of the NCAA hockey championships in Lake Placid, N.Y. (Truly Superior Lakers, April 11). He certainly captured the spirit and color of this event.

A little-known but interesting fact about the tournament is that five players who performed under coach Charlie Huntington at the Canterbury School in New Milford, Conn., were represented on three of the four final teams. Brian Bellefeuille of Maine, Brian Corso and Mike de Carle of Lake Superior State and the Lappin brothers, Pete and Tim, of Saint Lawrence all wore Canterbury blue. Moreover, de Carle and Pete Lappin were two of the six players named to the all-tournament team.
KEVIN J. COLLINS
Wyckoff, N.J.