Amherst Out

One night last week hulking (230 lbs.) Rufus Stanley Woodward, sports editor of the New York Herald Tribune, was called on the carpet. When he left the office of Managing Editor George Cornish, Woodward was out of a job (after 18 years on the Trib). Woodward had made the Trib's sports section one of the best in the U.S., but he had asked for trouble. He had criticized the firing or forced retirement of several staffers. And when the management asked what two men he could fire for economy, he had sarcastically suggested: "Columnist Red Smith and me."

Woodward, who plans to spend his time finishing his book on how to be a sports editor, had his own explanation. Cracked he: "The Yale class of '36 has taken over." (Woodward is Amherst '17.)

There was some basis for the crack. Yaleman Whitelaw Reid, the new editor (and son of the owner), had a bevy of competent classmates around him: Radio Columnist John Crosby; Dick Pinkham, new circulation manager; and August Heckscher, a new editorial writer. The new sports editor (also Yale '36) is curly-haired, gregarious Bob Cooke, who once did a sports column for the Yale Daily News, played right wing on the varsity hockey team, was an Army flyer (in B-26s) during the war. His first official act was to assign himself back to the Brooklyn Dodgers; Woodward had switched him this year to cover the New York Yankees.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.