Cover Foils - They Wuz Framed

The cover of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED is a public stage that showcases athletes and often measures their popularity. Muhammad Ali has graced 37 of our covers, second only to the 49 of Michael Jordan. But there's also a taxi squad of largely anonymous competitors who have appeared on our cover as unwitting foils: quarterbacks laid out by looming linebackers; lead-footed point guards burned by soaring shooters; lightly regarded heavyweights flattened by left hooks. For some, the cover is a revelation: Indiana State swingman Bob Heaton didn't know that Michigan State's Magic Johnson had dunked on him in the 1979 NCAA title game until he picked up that week's magazine. But to many of the sporting world's "other guys" our cover is a mortifying memento.

Dwight Qawi, the boxer who fended off a Michael Spinks combination on an '83 cover, says the photo of his face "all squinched up" still irks him. "The fact is, my nose was broken," the erstwhile Camden Buzzsaw recalls bitterly. "The cover should have told the story of the fight: How Spinks ran like a thief, how I knocked him down. He got a majority decision, but lots of people thought I'd won, including me. That cover shot hurts more than my nose did."

Clearly, the sting of defeat lingers well beyond the issue's life on the newsstands. Of the 20 "other guys" we tried to reach for this story, nine--including two former NBA players who became NBA coaches--either didn't return our calls or refused to be interviewed. Mike Guess, the Ohio State safety whom Oklahoma's Billy Sims used as a stepping stone on a cover 29 years ago, initially hung up on us.

"Making the cover wasn't a pleasant experience," says Mark Washington, the Dallas Cowboys defensive back who was caught on our 1976 Super Bowl cover lying prone on the turf as Pittsburgh Steelers receiver Lynn Swann floated above him, poised to make a balletic grab. "I failed to knock the ball down," says Washington wistfully. "My play wasn't bad; Swann's was super. I don't lose any sleep over it. Not anymore."

Washington was one of three Dallas defenders humbled on our cover in postseason losses. "The picture of my misplay haunted me for a long time," says former linebacker D.D. Lewis, who feared he would be remembered for standing by helplessly as Steelers fullback Rocky Bleier leaped to haul in a pass in Super Bowl XIII. "I finally got to a place where I could let it go, but first I had to forgive myself for being human."

Cowboys fans never forgave cornerback Everson Walls for allowing Dwight Clark to make what we billed as the super catch in the 1982 NFC playoffs. With the 49ers trailing 27--21 in the final minute of play, Clark plucked a desperate Joe Montana heave out of the air in the end zone to set up a 28--27 victory. Though Walls had intercepted two passes and recovered a fumble in the game, all anyone cared about was the one that got away. "The cover followed me around like a bad check," says Walls. "For years my career was defined by that one negative image."

Walls didn't feel vindicated until the 1991 Super Bowl, when as a member of the victorious New York Giants he appeared as our exulting cover boy. "I always said my son Cameron should keep a copy of that cover folded in his wallet," says Walls. "If he got needled about the Catch, he could pull it out and say, 'Look, Dad did something positive, too.'"

Curiously, our first "other guy," middleweight Gene Fullmer, was shown getting bashed in the belly by Sugar Ray Robinson in a 1957 title fight that Fullmer actually won. That photo, on the cover of the issue that previewed the rematch, was prescient. In Round 5, Robinson landed two right hands to the body that dropped Fullmer's guard. Fullmer waded into Robinson's left hook, pitched to the canvas and surrendered his crown. Mercifully, the 74-year-old Fullmer has no memory of the blow--or the cover.

"I don't have Alzheimer's, I have Halfheimer's," he cracks. "I don't recall half of what I ought to."

George CHUVALO

CHUVALO'S SKULL absorbed a right from Muhammad Ali (a.k.a. Cassius Clay) on SI's April 11, 1966, cover. "I took a lot of heat for supposedly throwing low blows in that bout, but look at how high Ali wore his cup," says Chuvalo, who lost that 15-rounder by decision and now, at age 68, lectures throughout Canada on the dangers of using illegal drugs. "I felt like Elmer Fudd did when he fought Bugs Bunny and Bugs kept from getting hit by wearing his trunks up to his ears."

Louis BREEDEN