Notre Dame Is No. 1 in These Rankings, Too

Just who is Bill Studwell, anyway, and who put him up to this?

Studwell, a librarian at Northern Illinois, recently spent more than a month listening to recordings of college fight songs and watching football games, then went public with his rankings.

From a pool of more than 30 songs--graded for music quality, lyrics and overall tone--Studwell chose “Cheer, Cheer For Old Notre Dame” No. 1.

Add fight songs: Studwell ranked Michigan’s “The Victors” second, Wisconsin’s “On Wisconsin” third and Yale’s “Down the Field” fourth. Navy’s “Anchors Aweigh” and Maine’s “Stein Song” tied for fifth.

Studwell resisted a personal bias in placing “Anchors Aweigh” so far down the list. A loyal Navy fan, he told the Associated Press: “ ‘Anchors Aweigh’ is not as great as others at killing the opposition. It has almost a waltz beat to it, like a destroyer going up and down the ocean.”

Trivia time: Who was the first major league player to have his uniform number retired?

No relation: In case you missed it: When tournament winner David Peoples finished with 264, good for $150,000 at the Kapalua Invitational Saturday, he came in 22 strokes, and $145,500, ahead of Peter Persons.

Quiet, please: Former British tennis champion Andrew Castle said last week: “It was only a joke.”

The Lawn Tennis Assn. Disciplinary Committee said Castle’s joke will cost him 2,400 pounds, adding that his action “was in breach of the rules of the LTA and the LTA Code of Conduct.”

During the Prudential National championships at Telford, England, Castle carried a placard that read “No to the Poll Tax,” in protest of a controversial levy on all adults that replaced the system under which home owners were assessed according to the size of their property.

Campaign manager: AP’s reports from newspapers interviewing friends of Pete Rose who have visited him in prison and come back with little to report continue to trickle in.

Last week, restaurateur Jeff Ruby, who said he was the first non-family member to visit Rose at the federal prison in Marion, Ill., told the Dayton Daily News: “ . . . if he doesn’t get into the Hall of Fame, I fear that’s his death sentence. I worry about him doing something to himself. I really do. Stranger things have happened.”

The people’s choice: Coach Steve Spurrier’s Florida Gators were 7-1 when voters went to the polls last Tuesday. Had he entered the governor’s race, he might be facing a career decision.

In Alachua County, which includes the Gainesville campus, elections supervisor Buddy Irby said Spurrier was the clear third-place finisher, adding: “My staff told me they saw several ballots go through with his name (written in).”

Trivia answer: Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees, No. 4, in 1939.

Quotebook: University of California broadcaster Joe Starkey, updating his listeners with six minutes to play in Cal’s 28-3 victory over Oregon Saturday: “If you joined us late, the story of the game is the absence of Bill Musgrave, the Ducks’ outstanding quarterback, who left the game in the second quarter with a shoulder injury. But don’t think that’s the story of the game, because when he left the Bears led, 21-3.”