SPORT: Merry Christman

Of the 15,000 or more college players who put on a show for U. S. football fans last Saturday, most fabulous was big, blond Paul Christman, quarterback for Missouri. In New York City’s Yankee Stadium, Christman’s hipper-dipper passes and lunging plunges were the margin between victory and defeat over New York University. But Christman is more than a good footballer, he is an extraordinary one: to him football is just a game.

On the football field “Passin’ Paul” is as nonchalant as a co-ed over a cocktail. When he darts to the right, then spins around and throws a touchdown pass to the left, one of his favorite plays, he usually explains to his opponent: “Just a little thing we thought up . . . no deception intended.” Once when an opposing tackier bounced him for the 19th time, Christman gazed up at him from the ground, said: “My boy, why don’t you rest on your laurels?”

Collier’s last week featured Paul Christman as the Dizzy Dean of football. His Missouri college mates strongly disapprove of the comparison. To point out that he is just a merry, modest young fellow, they tell how, after a Missouri defeat, Big Paul ambled off the field, wagging his head: “Me a football player? I should know better.”