Scorecard

And Hemingway thought he was a heavyweight.

HEN'S TEETH

A lot of people interested in the Montreal Olympics were frustrated in early efforts to buy tickets to the Games. Everything seemed to be gone simultaneously with the announcement that they were on sale. Now Montgomery Ward, the official U.S. ticket distributor, has received a second allotment from the Montreal Organizing Committee. More than 400,000 tickets to next summer's fun and games will be on sale from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31—but don't get too excited. Unless you are intensely interested in soccer or some of the so-called minor sports, the pickin's are slim. Events for which good seats are available, besides soccer, are archery, canoeing, equestrian sports, field hockey, judo, modern pentathlon, rowing, shooting and yachting. You might find tickets for basketball, boxing and team handball, but not for the finals.

In track and field, the backbone of the Olympics, most seats are gone for those sessions in which final events are scheduled, but you still can get in to see the finals of the 100-meter dash, the 800-meter run, the 400-meter hurdles, the 20-kilometer walk, the shotput, the discus, the women's long jump, the women's javelin and the women's 100 meters. And you can still find tickets to the women's final in basketball.

KNICKER NEWS

When cross-country skiing began to boom a few years back, it was mostly because it was cheap and easy to do. No expensive fiber-glass skis, no plastic boots, no sleek, skintight ski clothes, no crowded slopes, no freezing hours on lift lines. Just put on some baggy, old-fashioned knickers, a sweater and knit cap, buy a pair of wooden langrenn skis for something like $39.95 and take off for the woods—and peace. You didn't need a groomed trail or a lot of technique. Anybody who could walk could ski cross-country.

But all things change. Fiber-glass skis for cross-country began to appear about three years ago, and now every manufacturer makes them. They are faster than wooden ones and don't require as much waxing. Today there is not a single cross-country racer in the world who does not compete on them. And what the racers use, the recreational skiers covet. The shops are filled with fiber-glass models at $100 and $150, and skiers will go faster and farther on them, which means they will need wider, safer trails, which will require more maintenance, which will cost more. Cross-country skiing seems to be falling into the expensive, structured ruts that have come to characterize Alpine skiing. No more peace and quiet. No more simple life. You know what will disappear next? Those knickers. You watch.

YEOMAN EFFORT

Oberlin, never a football power even though John Heisman of trophy fame once coached there, hit rock bottom after the controversial reign of Athletic Director Jack Scott and Football Coach Cass Young Jackson. Jackson's departure particularly hurt, because when he left for Morris Brown College in Atlanta he took the crack passing combination of Willie Martinez and Jay Greeley with him.

This year Oberlin faced a six-game schedule with the tatters of a squad. After losing 28-0 to Centre, 35-13 to Carnegie-Mellon and 21-6 to Hamilton, Coach Dick Riendeau had only 16 men available for a game with Kenyon a couple of Saturdays ago. Out of necessity, Riendeau uses a basic lineup—the team's nickname, fittingly, is the Yeomen—that plays both offense and defense.