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It seems the Knicks' superswinger Dick Barnett harbors a passion for chess, picking up games wherever he can. He has just accepted a challenge from a man in Cleveland, whom he will play by mail ("He said he was a chess nut, and so am I"), and he would like someday to play Bobby Fischer, just for fun. A spokesman at Fischer's chess club in New York has observed dryly that Bobby "won't play for less than half a thousand dollars." Barnett is not that big a chess nut.

Sonny Jurgensen has shaved off his sideburns and chin whiskers. It was a simple, private ceremony. "I was only offered $1," he explained. "By my wife."

Once again Adolph Rupp has wrested a great performance from a five-man team. Toast-master at a testimonial dinner for Earl Ruby, retired sports editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, Rupp had as speakers four former Kentucky governors—Lawrence W. Wetherbee, A. B. (Happy) Chandler, Bert T. Combs, Edward T. Breathitt—and incumbent Louie B. Nunn. Rupp gave his men their pre-speech instructions and introduced them. When the proceedings were over he said, "When I die I wouldn't mind if they put it on my tombstone, 'This man got five governors to speak—and finish—in 36 minutes.' "

Come July M. Charles Masson, owner of one of New York's most highly regarded French restaurants, will take leave of the massed flowers, polished crystal and amber mirrors of La Grenouille to serve as chef aboard his old friend Huey Long's Ondine for the Trans-Pacific race from San Pedro, Calif. to Honolulu. Masson's nautical experience is extensive—he served both in the French and U.S. merchant marine, and for nine years he was maitre d' aboard the S.S. Independence—but all that was, on the whole, a more vertical experience than cooking on the Ondine may prove. As crew member George Davis wrote Masson, "The menus you have suggested sound excellent—a sailor's dream. However, you will only be able to prepare these elegant meals if the yacht remains upright..." Masson says philosophically, "The men have indicated that they want mainly steaks, but I will probably try to pretty them up with some shallots to make them look desirable."

While M. Masson is off being a sportsman instead of a restaurateur, Giants placekicker Pete Gogolak will be busy doing the opposite. At the owner's invitation, Gogolak is learning the restaurant business from the bottom up at the 21 Club in New York. For several years Gogolak spent his springs doing graduate work in hotel administration at Cornell, and his summers working in hotels before attending to football in the autumn. The Army interrupted him, but at 21 Pete will have ample opportunity to catch up on his sauce b�arnaise—he has already worked as a busboy and been observed misguidedly pouring brandy on a lobster and setting it afire. This, 21 points out in self-defense, is a dish not found on their menu.

"There has been, and let us acknowledge it, a spiritual flabbiness from which our fathers would have fled," said Richard Cardinal Cushing of Boston at the beginning of Lent. "We have become in some measure 'fat' Christians whose religion does not overmuch interfere with our comfort." Cushing, that practical good man, recommended "holy jogging" and "spiritual pushups" for the pre-Easter season, and those of his flock who have heeded his words should be starting to shape up. If His Eminence can talk them into a few extra weeks they should peak just about in time for the Boston Marathon.

"Would you find out who's going to win the NCAA basketball championships?" came the request from outer space, but the best earth could do for Commander James McDivitt, Michigan '59, was a couple of regional scores. "Davidson beat Villanova 75 to 61 and Miami of Ohio beat Notre Dame 63 to 60," Control reported, and later snuck in a regular-season score: " Ohio State beat Michigan 95 to 86." "Oh, listen," McDivitt said unhappily, "I'm not going to be able to live with my wife. You know she's from Miami. If Michigan got beat and Miami of Ohio won, I'm in trouble when I get home." McDivitt thought it all over and came home anyway.