Events & Discoveries

"A 95," said Barry. "And I'll always be a Yankee fan."

GOLF & THE HEART

The fact that President Eisenhower, who will be 65 years old this month, played 27 holes of golf on Denver's mile-high Cherry Hills course the afternoon before he suffered his heart attack raised a question in the mind of many an American: Did that much golf at that altitude and at that age cause the attack? (Actually, the exertion involved in the 27 holes was less than most people imagine since the President drove over the course in a motorized cart.)

In any case, Dr. Paul Dudley White, the heart specialist who flew from Boston to treat the President, thinks that the golf and the altitude were not the precipitating causes. "We see attacks come frequently at sea level," Dr. White said, "and in people who never play golf. My own feeling is that golf has often been wrongly blamed, that those who play golf and have an attack at the age of 65 might have had an attack at 45 if they hadn't played golf."

FIRST MISSION

All right! You've got the word from the tower; let's take the runway. Blast off, get your wheels under you, get on up to Mach 1 and, when you make contact, throw in those afterburners! And watch out for bogeys in the flight pattern."

Red alert? Scramble? Unidentified bombers on the radar screen? Negative. Football practice.

This Saturday the new U.S. Air Force Academy begins its first intercollegiate football season against an otherwise undistinguished freshman team from the University of Denver (proving it is still wise, even in this jet and rocket age of aviation, to learn to taxi before you try to fly). No one knows exactly what to expect from the future flyboys except that they should undoubtedly be green. Otherwise, proper security measures have been taken and no enemy spy, even by slipping in to watch a practice session and listen to the coaches give instruction, is going to find out much about tactical plans. The only thing an opposing scout might discover will be nothing new: even on a football field the Air Force just doesn't talk like anyone else.

As part of the academy plan to give its cadets a language all their own, almost everything they are told is couched in jet-pilot lingo. For men like Athletic Director Colonel Bob Whitlow, a three-letter man at West Point before flying 521 combat hours over Europe, and his staff, composed chiefly of veteran Air Force officers like Major Frank Merritt, Captain Cyril Doleac and Captain Julius (Mush) Battista, it's easy. Herewith some of their football vocabulary, supersonic style:

Word from the tower—instructions from the coach.