Moonlight Ride

At 62, Coach Robert Dougherty weighs 195, stands 6 ft. 1 in., is still hard-muscled enough to 'take my turn with the boys" during football workouts at Chicago's Harrison High School. Because he has two children in college, and needs more than his $7,000 yearly salary as football coach and director of physical education to keep them there, Dougherty also takes his turn three nights a week as a taxicab driver. Moonlighting earns him about $2,000 a year, but there are inevitable brushes with Chicago's night life; knife-point holdups in 1956 and 1957 lost him $40, one watch.

Last week Coach Dougherty drove into the same old mousetrap--a fare picked up at midnight in the Loop, an arm around the neck and a razor at the throat. Dougherty turned over $30, all he carried. But the razor wielder wildly demanded more money, sprawled into the front seat, pulled a pistol, and said, "I'm going to kill you anyway." Figuring "by then I had run out of chances," Dougherty grabbed the pistol and killed his fare, a 23-year-old dope addict.

On the next school day, Coach Dougherty was back in class, tagged "Wyatt Earp" by awed students. And by week's end, since $7,000 is still not enough to support two kids in college, the coach was back in his hack.

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