This Star Returns to Earth

Edwin Moses was getting the star treatment.

It was five minutes before the scheduled start of his press conference and hotel workers were hastily taping a large red cloth to the dark backdrop behind the place he would sit to face the press.

It looked like something the workers might do to prepare for a firing-squad execution. Something to make the cleanup easier.

Instead of rifles, however, Moses would be facing dozens of TV cameras and would speak into dozens of microphones. The star treatment.

As Moses could tell you today, the only star hotter than a rising star is a falling star.

For example, how many former Miss Americas can you name? I can name one.

At precisely 2 o’clock, Edwin Moses walked into the room with his wife and his attorney. His agent had promised in print that Moses would be at the press conference and would present convincing evidence of his innocence on a charge of soliciting a vice officer posing as a prostitute.

A lot of media people showed up to hear Moses present his case, to hear the un-lurid details of his fateful meeting with that undercover cop early Sunday morning on Sunset Boulevard. They were disappointed.

“It had been my intention to discuss the matter fully,” Moses said during his brief statement.

His lawyer, however, had advised him not to, so he didn’t. Lawyers know more about these things than agents.

Instead, Moses spoke briefly and said little.

“I’m truly mortified by the events of the last few days and I’m fully confident . . . that you will see the allegations made against me are mistaken,” he said.

He also apologized for any discomfort the incident has caused to his wife, friends, family or fans.

Then he was gone, whisked away by hotel security guards to a secret exit and into a waiting Mercedes, all part of the star treatment.

It was a strange press conference, indeed, probably the strangest in L.A. since prep basketball sensation John Williams called one to announce his choice of colleges, then didn’t show up. At least Moses had the grace to appear, however briefly.

This is worth something in the world of sport, where guys routinely stiff the press after committing legal crimes, such as striking out with runners on base.

An odd footnote to the odd press conference was the appearance of John Naber, the former Olympic swimmer, who didn’t contact Moses but simply showed up on his own as a sort of informal character witness.

“I wanted to be here because Edwin’s my friend,” Naber told reporters. “I want to show my support.”

Naber did show his support, and he also helped explain why the Edwin Moses story is so big now, why an alleged misdemeanor has become front-page, banner headlines: because of the element of surprise.

“If someone had asked me to name the single, least-likely person to be involved in something like this, I would have bet the family farm on Edwin,” Naber said.

“If I were to point to an Olympic athlete over the last 50 years and say to my son or daughter, ‘Grow up and be just like him,’ it would be Edwin. It would have to be Edwin Moses.”

Before Edwin Moses can get back into heavy, positive role modeling, however, there is the matter of his innocence or guilt. The courts will decide, but it’s shaping up as the hottest topic of sports-crime conversation since the controversy over who was at fault in the Mary Decker crash.

What do I think? I think there’s at least a chance that Moses was guilty of nothing more than playful bantering with the undercover cop, and that he never had any intention of buying sex.

I know I’m not ready to condemn Moses because he might have deviated from that knight-in-shining-armor image he has developed over the years.

I think I will still be willing to point to Moses and advise a kid to grow up and be just like him, only I’d also advise the kid that driving along Sunset Boulevard is like driving through Lion Country Safari. You should always keep the windows rolled up.

Especially if you grow up to be famous. When you’re famous, they give you millions of dollars for wearing certain shoes and they give you nice awards and trophies, but they also keep a real close eye on you.

They put you in the headlines when you win and when you lose, and sometimes the headlines are bigger when you lose.

It’s called the star treatment, and Edwin Moses is getting it now.