Water Babies

P: Ushers in white waiters' jackets gave front-row spectators bed sheets to spread across their knees.

P: Pretty Eleanor Holm Jarrett succeeded in being photographed in innumerable poses.

P: Adolph Kiefer of Chicago, ablest backstroke swimmer in the U. S., won the 150-yd. dash by half the length of the pool, without hurrying broke his own world's record by 3 sec., described his performance into a microphone before getting out of the water.

P: The New York Athletic Club's Peter Fick equaled one of the most formidable records in the sport by winning a preliminary heat of the 100-yd. dash in Johnny Weissmuller's record time--51 sec. And after four days of spluttering & splashing in the Lake Shore Athletic Club pool, the Amateur Athletic Union's National indoor swimming championships ended in Chicago last week with 25 new marks for the record book and at least three new girl prodigies whose faces, framed in foam and furnished with toothy smiles, will decorate this summer's rotogravure sections:

Mary Lou Petty of Seattle, blonde, stocky, 21-year-old protegee of the Washington Athletic Club's famed Coach Ray Daughters, who makes her swim an hour a day, allows her to train on baked potatoes and badminton, last week beat Champion Lenore Right Wingard in two free-style events, set a new U. S. record (2:34.2) at 220-yd.

Marian ("Swede") Mansfield, 18, Northwestern University sophomore, diver, who, her own turn finished, wrapped herself in a brown blanket, sat in a camp chair ostentatiously looking in the opposite direction while her rivals sprang off the low board. Obviously the most personable contestant in the event, she was also, in the opinion of five judges, the ablest by a shade. Claudia Eckert, a mop-haired, 18-year-old Northwestern amphibian who, like famed Katherine ("Minnow") Rawls, is indiscriminately adept at all forms of aquatic competition. Last year she won the A. A. U. high diving championship. Last week she lost this title to 13-year-old Marjorie Gestring of Los Angeles, replaced it with the 100-yd. free-style championship, in which she just nosed out Swimmer Petty. The victory helped console her for a misfortune earlier in the week. While practicing, Claudia Eckert got a telegram which said that she had missed winning $600 by not being present at a cinemansion Bank Night.

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