FOOTBALL; Iranian hostages and the NFL

The commissioner of the National Football League has to field all sorts of requests, but one made recently by the National Black Veterans Organization probably was as unusual as any.

The group wrote to Pete Rozelle, asking him to require NFL teams to wrap a yellow ribbon around each goal post in the league "and order it kept there until the embassy hostages [in Iran] are released by the Ayatollah Khomeini." Noting the popularity and visibility of pro football, Frederick L. Jones, executive director of the veterans' organization, went on to inform the commissioner that "history seldom provides one man with such an opportunity" to make a gesture of this type.