People

By Guy D. Garcia

His graceful moves on the football field leave the opposition flat-footed. Now Chicago Bear Willie Gault has pirouetted from the end zone to the ballet | world. Trading cleats and pads for leotards and slippers, the fleet wide receiver leaped to new heights last week with a troupe of inner-city youths and the Chicago City Ballet in a benefit for the Better Boys Foundation. Gault, 26, put in five practice sessions (but no chalk talk) for his number to the music of Webern. He was partnered by Ballerina Maria Terezia Balogh, whom he lifted with the greatest of ease before an appreciative audience that included Teammate Jim McMahon. Says Balogh of her dancing Bear: "He was very gentle, very relaxed and very sensitive." But not without reservations about tackling the finer arts. "I didn't know if I'd want to run around in public with tights on," concedes Gault, who nevertheless wants "to be an actor on the big screen." Or at least the big stage. Two days after his terpsichorean debut, Gault played a cameo role in a Chicago production of Singin' in the Rain. How're they going to get him back on the field?