Too Rough for Football

Mike McKeever--fast, rock-hard and big (6 ft. 1 in., 220 lbs.)--is the tougher of U.S.C.'s famed McKeever twins (TIME, Oct. 26). Last week, studying films of the U.S.C.-California game (U.S.C. 14, Cal 7), the president and chancellor of the University of California leveled serious charges against U.S.C.'s star lineman. While Cal's Halfback Steve Bates lay spilled on his back, out of bounds, after an 11-yd. run, McKeever had piled on him. The play was over, yet "McKeever not only continued his forward momentum but changed course towards Bates. He dived at Steve Bates with his elbow far extended, which hit Bates in the side of the face."

Last week in Berkeley's Cowell Memorial Hospital, surgeons operated on Halfback Bates, repairing the right side of his face, described by a staff doctor as "crushed in, distorted, flattened, and twisted by the fractured parts that hold the face in contour." Among the multiple fractures, the plate of bone that holds the upper teeth was cracked and "the right sinus was fractured extensively."

Sipping an all white ice cream soda in a campus snack bar, Mike the Knife (as the press had begun to call him) said his elbows were clean; too bad about Bates, but he just couldn't stop. U.S.C.'s Coach Don Clark backed up his man, said that McKeever had performed "no misconduct," had played a "clean but aggressive game." After all, the officials on the spot had not penalized U.S.C. on the questioned play.

McKeever had been aggressive before. Last year the same elbows scythed into Cal Quarterback Joe Kapp, and that time U.S.C. drew a 15-yd. penalty that set up a Cal touchdown (Cal won 14-12 and went on to the Rose Bowl). This season Mike McKeever was thrown out of the U.S.C.-Stanford game for sinking an elbow into Stanford Center Doug Pursell. And after Bates had been sent off to the hospital in the U.S.C.-Cal game, Mike McKeever chopped away, twice elbowed Cal Quarterback Pete Olson, was finally thrown out of the game--but only after opening up a six-stitch cut on the inside of Olson's mouth.

Reviewing the facts and the films, U.S.C.'s President Dr. Norman Topping made a public apology to the University of California for "this most regrettable incident," and promised that it would not happen again. Last Saturday, as U.S.C. coasted to an easy win over West Virginia, Mike McKeever was at his usual position and at the bottom of a major share of U.S.C. tackles. But he kept his elbows close to his sides.

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