the teaching of any sort of muscular coordination, are enormous, especially now that Ariel has a little computer that can take instructions from a stick. Unlike the $8 million University of Massachusetts computer that Ariel dealt with through telephone connections and a Telex keyboard, his new one, the size of an electric stove and costing only $60,000, displays a set of functions on a screen and the operator selects the one he wants performed by directing a floating indicator light with a lever Ariel calls a joy stick. In a slot goes a black, magnetic insert that can hold nearly a million bits of information. The term for these is flexible diskettes-"floppy disks," in Ariel's argot. "In scientific training, a man will have his own floppy, containing his whole athletic history and an individual program computed for his needs. As he works in the gym or on the field, the computer will monitor him, giving him instant feedback directions ... congratulations." Dr. Gerry Purdy, author of Computerized Running Training Programs and one of the few men in the field who share Ariel's dual expertise in computers and exercise science, says of this, "My first reaction is that he's bordering on artificial intelligence. Academically, it's not unreasonable, but from a practical standpoint, it's like Star Wars."

Yet clearly the last obstacle to such an instant system is the fact that film takes time to be developed, and video tape is not yet a suitable replacement because of insufficient clarity and speed. But we are at a stage now where a computer can divine an athlete's optimum technique in an event and coach him toward it. "Of course, if a high jumper doesn't want to land on his back, that's another problem," says Ariel. "That's psychology. We can't do anything about that."

Gideon Ariel's own psychology is nearly as fascinating as his science. A clumsy, shy boy, he grew up in a boarding school near Natanya, about 20 miles north of Tel Aviv. Poor in sports, he nonetheless longed to be an athlete, and in 1956, when he was 17, he found that the best Israeli discus man had thrown less than 160 feet. Something clicked. "I can do better than that," he said and embarked upon four years of training, almost demented in his intensity. Speaking to a class at Amherst, he said, "If

you want to be a discus thrower, you have to live with the discus. Carry it with you. Sleep with it."

That is what he did, with both shot and discus, throwing them as much as eight hours a day. "I threw from pictures. Coaches meant well, but one would say one thing, another would contradict him. It was all opinion. How did they know?"

One who knew a lot more than the rest was Dr. LeRoy Walker of North Carolina Central, who later became head coach of the 1976 U.S. Olympic men's track and field team. In the late '50s Walker coached Israel and Ariel. "He told us to do things we never did, like sprints and weight lifting, and we were all so sore after the first day we said, `This guy is crazy.' But he had a method. He said, `Go throw 500 times and we will talk. I can't tell you anything now because your variability is so great.' It worked. 1 got a pattern down and we could go from there. We talked about forces and angles. It was the beginning of a scientific approach."

They also talked about college scholarships, and after Ariel had taken part in the Rome Olympics and spent three years in the Army, he came to the University of Wyoming. "My life was just to throw the discus," he says.

When he graduated in 1966, it was found that Ariel had spent three years at Israel's Wingate Institute, earning a Diploma of Physical Education degree in 1960. He had never thought to tell anyone about it and had thus completed three years of U.S. college athletic competition without being eligible for it. "Wyoming was fun," he says now, "but the coach wasn't like Dr. Walker. It was back to opinion."

Ariel applied to the newly created School of Exercise Science at the University of Massachusetts, got his master's degree in nine months, became an assistant track coach and then plunged into an eclectic set of studies with all the fervor of his early years with the discus. "There had to be 20-hour days for him then," recalls University of Massachusetts Track Coach Ken O'Brien. "I'd find him sleeping at his desk in the mornings. A professor in one of his classes would mention some advance in an allied field, like calculus or cybernetics, and Gideon would go over and take the course."

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