The Phantom Tackle

At Ohio's Wittenberg University this fall, the football team won all nine games, achieved its second unbeaten season, and became co-champion of the state conference. But last week disaster struck: Wittenberg was forced to forfeit all its 1970 games.

What threw Wittenberg for a loss was a slight sin of omission by Tackle Rick Mako, 21. Last spring, because of some unpaid bills, Rick skipped registering for his senior year; this fall the registrar's office told him it was too late. When a routine administrative check uncovered Rick's nonstudent status last week, Wittenberg sportingly confessed that it had fielded an ineligible player. Conference officials duly voided the team's record.

Why did Rick do it? "I kind of panicked," he says. "I got into a trap and didn't know what to do." Hiding his anguish inside his 215-lb. hulk, Rick continued to live in the apartment he shared with other students near the campus; he spent his days practicing football and lurking in the library instead of attending classes. Nobody knew the difference. As Wittenberg's Athletic Director Bill Edwards ruefully explained: "With so much independent study and so many seminars these days, it wasn't hard. He kind of lived a double life."

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