Long before they ever met, the Dallas Cowboys were the biggest rivals the Houston Oilers had. The Cowboys were unaware of this except at the management level, where TV ratings were studied with...

With only a month to go, at least seven National League teams are in lovely fighting positions for the two playoff berths, but Chicago and San Francisco seem the safest

Take one well-roasted ball club, place it in a small park, season with French fans, sprinkle with tourists, add a touch of the Mets' madness and perhaps a smidgen of Woodstock and voilà—the...

Portly Steve Melnyk, a 22-year-old Georgian who likes a good meal as much as he does a birdie, had both last week as he won the U.S. Amateur Championship at Oakmont by five strokes

Some coaches are ready to make extreme efforts to relate to the new breed of student-athletes—who are really athlete-students. Others are fed up with so-called appeasement and clamor for a return...

College football marks its 100th anniversary, having begun on Nov. 6, 1869 with a friendly tussle between Rutgers and Princeton in New Brunswick. Since then thousands of players have run, passed...

As you may know, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED'S parent company, Time Inc., has acquired a new president, James R. Shepley. He succeeds James A. Linen, who asked to be relieved of his duties because of a...

There will be plenty to see, the bird watchers were promised—but after fluttering for 20 days across seven Soviet republics they discovered that their ornithological bag was one Red bird per 150 miles

High school Football, says a mother who knows, adversely affects dinner hours, study habits and older males, but the medical care is superb and you learn about neck sizes

Where there's a beach there's a ball, and where there's a ball there's Wilt Chamberlain, even if it's a volleyball. Wilt turned up recently on the sands of Will Rogers State Beach, in Santa...

On its waters New York's Graham Hall sailed to daylight in the Mallory Cup races—a competition for the North American title in which the boats are equal so that the men themselves may stand out...

Not all of the seven brothers and cousins who own Lindy's Pride were present when he pursued trotting's top prize in Illinois. The two who had led the family into the sport had an appointment at...

The training regimen for the game of darts is beer—and a few champions are at their best when they have to be held up to shoot. They—and a million others, some of them sober—are Closing the...

PHANTOM CROWDS

•Sam Jones, Boston Celtic star who retired this spring, explaining that it did not surprise him when Bill Russell announced that he was resigning as player-coach of the team: "What would you do if...

AMERICAN LEAGUE

For years the Giant farm system has been producing the next Willie Mays. The quest, which at times bordered on being a fetish, brought up such replacements as Jose Cardenal and Leon Wagner, Willie...

BOATING—GRAHAM HALL of Bayside, N.Y. won the Mallory Cup, North America's men's sailing championship. Hall, in second place prior to the final race, was an easy victor when 18-year-old Peter...

4—T. Tanuma, Jacques Mégraz18-21—Walter Iooss Jr.22, 23—UPI, AP (2)27—James Purring30, 31—Jim Vincent-The Oregonian, Lee Balterman, Seattle Post Intelligencer32—Leviton-Atlanta37—Lee...

Debbie Smith, 8, a 54-pound fourth-grader from Hampton, Va., rolled a 501 series with games of 165, 178 and 158 on her father's lanes. A bowler for two years, Debbie has a high game of 198 and a...

ON THE LINESirs:Hooray! Someone has finally laid it on the line and made an effort to stand up and be counted (The Desperate Coach, Aug. 25 et seq.). Athletics in the past have been a means, or a...