Beano And The "3 Cs"

In the University of Pittsburgh's backfield this fall there are two thick-muscled halfbacks and a squat, pugnacious fullback. Last year, for two thirds of the season, they rested quietly on the bench, partly because of injuries but largely because their inexperience disqualified them under Coach John Michelosen's adults-only policy. Finally, in a desperate attempt to shore up his sagging team, Michelosen played the three together against Boston College. They ran over Boston College, ran over Notre Dame the following week and ran over Penn State the week after that.

Their names are Cox, Clemens and Cunningham, and they are known at Pitt as the "C" boys. Unknown to the public (but very well known to the coaches and the press) is a fourth "C" boy who weighs as much as Cunningham (212 pounds), who hits as hard as Cox or Clemens, and who is as much of an asset (or liability, depending on one's point of view) to Pitt as Michelosen himself. His name is Cook—Carroll Hoff Cook (above). He has a cone-shaped head that is cropped like a boccie green, a prominent nose that directs him as unerringly as a radiator cap on a 1931 Duesenberg and a backside which lends him enormous momentum when he is pointed toward a newspaper office. And that is where he is usually headed, for Cook is Pitt's press agent.

Only Cook's mother calls him Carroll. Sportswriters from New York to Los Angeles know him as Beano Cook, a preposterous bachelor of 29 who Columnist Dan Parker has called "the greatest publicity man since Barnum—and, on second thought, Bailey, too." Describing his first exposure to Beano, Parker wrote that "he barged into my cubbyhole and granted me permission to listen while he interviewed himself."

Beano plunges into newspaper offices head down, as though bucking a gale. He wears a red-checked Ivy League cap and a suit which caresses his figure like the sheets on a flophouse bed. He carries a stuffed, battered briefcase in one hand and a clipboard in the other. (He even dines with the clipboard in his lap, often pausing to jot down ideas for publicity stunts. "Don't forget this for 1963!" a notation reads.)

This season, with the "C" boys as his spear, Beano has laid siege to communications as never before. At the start of training Beano recalled that Stripteaser Evelyn West's bosom ("The Treasure Chest") was insured by Lloyd's of London, and he immediately proposed a somewhat more comprehensive policy for the "C" boys. He thought $1 million would be about right. However, Pitt's athletic director, Frank Carver, pointed out to him that the premiums would be prohibitive, inasmuch as the prospect of breakage among football players is considerably greater than in Miss West's case.

"I do not know what this season will bring," Carver said recently, "but two things are certain. Beano will have us all over the papers, and he will have us deep in hot water."

In his four years as Pitt's press agent, Beano has pursued, by impetuosity or design, a policy of brinkmanship, often whipping up controversies that have brought Pitt's opponents almost to the point of severing athletic relations. Convinced of the oldtime fight managers' philosophy that nothing will pack in the customers as successfully as a cacophony of name-calling, Beano has berated West Point brass, labeled Penn State Coach Rip Engle a cry baby and denounced West Virginia University fans as incompetent drivers who create Saturday afternoon traffic jams. Police ejected him from the press table during a basketball game at Duke University when he directed a blunderbuss charge of insults at the referee, and the Penn State publicist threatened to have him censured by the ethics committee of the College Sports Information Directors of America for having flooded State territory with literature ridiculing, of all things, State's wrestling team.

"In short," adds Frank Carver, whose placid charm is the antithesis of Beano's unruly enthusiasm, "he is the best press agent in the business."

Carver and his predecessor, Admiral Tom Hamilton, often have reflected that one Cook is enough to spoil the broth, yet it is difficult to fault an employee whose tactics have helped boost Pitt's season ticket sales to new records in the face of professional competition from the Pittsburgh Steelers. (In 1956, Beano's first year on the job, the sale of season ticket books jumped from the previous year's total of 9,144 to 17,142.) Carver, moreover, appreciates Beano's loyalty to Pitt, a loyalty that equips him to fight dragons.

Pitt's football coaches, however, regard Beano with a malicious distrust and stand poised to blame defeats on him whenever possible. Their uncivil attitude dates back to October 1956, when Beano preceded the team west for a game with the University of California. At a press luncheon he listened to Pappy Waldorf, then head coach at Cal, tell the sportswriters he feared his team lacked second-half stamina.