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by year Harry, then later I, had to explain--at the monthly meetings of the board of directors--why it was we wanted to continue Sports Illustrated. When I look back I'm not quite sure why in those early days we should have, given the facts that were facing us.

The change came with Andre Laguerre, who was a curious frenchman. He worked for DeGaulle during the war. He was a very savvy Paris bureau chief for the news service. Harry and some others apparently knew that what Andre really liked was betting on the nags, on the dogs, or going to rugby. His real avocation was sports. They had the wit to bring him over, I think first as assistant managing editor. Then very shortly thereafter Sid James became publisher, and Andre Laguerre became managing editor. This was in the early 1960s. It was still losing money--a lot of money, by the terms of those years. Three, four, five million dollars a year, which was a sizable drain.

Andre was the one who understood that we were entirely on the wrong tack doing participatory sports, and that we should concentrate on spectator sports and that we should ride television rather than think of television as being competition, because television was always gonna make the weekend the sports event. He proceeded to do just that. I think the closing date may even have been changed, Sports closed on Monday so as to be able to get the entire weekend television sports story in, but written in such a way that it was nearly more interesting than the event itself--i.e., he did for Sports what Fortune did for business thirty years earlier. Namely, good writing is the key to the subject matter. Understanding of the subject matter is not so much the key, although they understood it.