BACK in the Stone Age of professional football, when some players did not even wear helmets, Marsh Clark was already a committed and suffering fan (his team was the Redskins). Then, as the "teeniest end in the conference," he chased tosses from his prep school quarterback on that legendary pattern, "the good old 21." That play, recalls Clark, "consisted of the single-wing quarterback releasing a pass in my general direction, then--being a good Christian gentleman--getting down on his knees to say a prayer." God apparently did not listen to quarterbacks' prayers in those days, and Clark soon went back to the grandstand as a constant spectator and sometime sport reporter. Last week he was on familiar turf, interviewing Joe Namath for our cover story.

Clark first contributed to a TIME football cover ten years ago, when the subject was Vince Lombardi and the Green Bay Packers. Three years later, "Broadway Joe" was the American Football League Rookie of the Year, and Clark, like many pro fans in those days, regarded the new league and its most colorful star lightly. "But one day in 1969, when I was bureau chief in Saigon," Clark says, "I set the alarm for 4 a.m. to listen to the Armed Forces Radio broadcast of the Super Bowl game between the Jets and the Colts. Joe made a believer of me."

Namath has since made a believer out of many fans, and a lot of defensive halfbacks as well. This week's cover story, written by Contributing Editor Mark Goodman, explores Namath's style both as passer and playboy. Correspondent Clark accompanied him on the team plane to Houston for the Jets' recent game with the Oilers, and again on the flight back to New York City. "Though the Jets had lost in a big upset, and Namath has a reputation for being difficult," says Clark, "I discovered that he was modest concerning his own achievements, praising of others, and he didn't dodge a question. He was nothing that I expected him to be, having read about him, and everything I expected him not to be."

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Our Science section this week contains a report on the state of science in the Soviet Union. Associate Editor Frederic Golden wrote the story after a three-week tour of facilities that took him from atom smashers outside Moscow to Siberia's academic community, Akademgorodok. Along with daily doses of thermonuclear physics, exobiology and cybernetics, Golden and four other American writers were treated to generous helpings of Soviet show business: cir cuses, ballet, opera and even a Kremlin variety show. Back in New York and facing a deadline, Golden seemed a victim of temporary culture shock. "Like their scientists," he says wistfully, "science writers over there are an elite."

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