The Mad, Mad Punter Of Louisville

Corso , though taken aback, gave his approval and Marcus punted for the freshmen and cheered the fall and winter away.

Then one day, when he was still feeling unfulfilled, Marcus entered the intramural table-tennis tournament and won the school championship. Then he entered the intramural tennis tournament and won that, too. He came back to see Corso .

"Is it all right if I play on the varsity tennis team?" he asked.

Corso threw up his hands. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather be chairman of the board of trustees?"

After that, Corso said, every time he opened a school paper, there was a picture of Scott Marcus up to something helpful. His hair parted down the middle and tied back with a headband, Marcus played No. 4 singles and No. 2 doubles on the tennis team. He won 14 of his 26 matches. Then he heaved the shot 51 feet in the intramural track meet. The track coach immediately offered him a scholarship.

Marcus went back to Corso 's office. "I've been offered a track scholarship," he said.

"Forget it," said Corso . "I'm putting you on full football scholarship. From now on you belong to me. From now on you are my flower child."

In the stereoed bedlam of his room at the Lambda Chi house, Marcus sprawled on his single bed one afternoon and mulled over his various athletic metamorphoses. He politely lowered the volume on a rock group called Chicago to explain to his company that the otherwise pedestrian appearance of his room (nothing hippie or unusual about it) was due in part to the girl from the art department who hadn't showed up. "She promised to paint some nudes on the ceiling," he said.

Marcus had just come out of the shower. His hair was dripping wet. Sitting on the bed, he shook his head like a spaniel, the movement making a rustling noise as the water described a halo of spray around his hair. "That's the way to do it," he said. "I don't comb it unless I absolutely have to. Looks better that way."

He said his hairstyle—a kind of Jewish Afro—was something he just enjoyed. "It's no big protest thing or like that," he said. "That's bummer stuff. I hear people talking about living in communes and how corrupt the capitalistic society is, and I've got to get away, man. That turns me off. I just like to do my thing. Like when I was in prep school at Cheshire Academy. In the summer I'd wear a beard, then I'd have to shave it off for school. I liked the beard better."