Scorecard

ABOUT WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT

Interviewed between halves of the Kansas-Colorado basketball game at Lawrence last week, Dr. W. Clarke Wescoe, chancellor of the University of Kansas, described a Sunday morning when he picked up Coach Ted Owens, who had returned from a victorious road trip, drove him home, and found Mrs. Owens and the two children setting out for Sunday school. "That," said Dr. Wescoe, "seemed to me to sum up what intercollegiate athletics is all about."

In the second half of the Colorado game, which Kansas won 66-59, the partisan crowd of 14,500 showered the court with debris when the officials' calls went against Kansas. When Colorado's Pat Frink was called for charging, a Kansas cheerleader bounded onto the floor prepared to assault him. And when Frink left the game after a magnificent 27-point performance, he was loudly booed.

We do not mean to single out Kansas here; in fact, crowd behavior at Lawrence is quite mild compared to that at other schools—Colorado for one. However, we do suggest to Dr. Wescoe, with less piety but rather more relevance, that this is not what intercollegiate athletics is all about, and that he, as well as others of his station elsewhere, must speak out. In this instance, during the second half would have been a good time.

FUN IS FUN

When Frank Austin came to Phoenix 11 years ago he was a man of immediate distinction: he was the only hockey referee in the state of Arizona. Last week Austin earned yet another distinction: he was the first member of the Arizona Umpire Association to give the heave-ho to a major leaguer.

Austin, 50, and an elementary school math teacher, was working a Chicago Cub intrasquad game in Scottsdale between the Pete Reisers and the Joe Amalfitanos. Before the game Manager Leo Durocher pulled Austin aside and advised him: "Don't let Reiser or Amalfitano get away with anything. But if they want to have a little fun...."

"I knew what he meant," Austin explained later. "We do it a lot out here. The people enjoy seeing an argument with the umpire. We go along with the gag and help put on the act. It makes the game more interesting."

In the seventh inning, with the score tied 1-1, Austin called a balk against Bill Connors, who was pitching for the Reisers. Out charged Reiser, protesting vigorously. Austin replied with appropriately angry gestures, all the while telling Reiser, "You're doing this very good, but don't shout so loud."

Then it dawned on Austin that Reiser wasn't kidding—he was using dirty words—so Austin threw him out.