Top Field Set for Track Meet at Coliseum Today : Good Turnout May Add Fuel to the Argument That the Sport Belongs There

The Coliseum is making a comeback as an arena for world-class track and field competition.

The stadium that was the site of the 1932 Olympic Games, international and NCAA championship meets and the popular Coliseum Relays is stirring again.

After a dormant period, the revival began with a United States-East Germany meet in 1983, and continued with the Olympic trials and Olympic Games last summer.

An ARCO-sponsored meet today that could be an annual event may be instrumental in keeping the Coliseum alive as a major track facility.

The field for today’s meet is first-class. There are 17 Olympic medal winners--four of them gold medalists--nine American record-holders and nine NCAA champions.

The meet will begin with the men’s triple jump at 1 p.m. and conclude with the men’s 800 meters at 3:10.

Although the Coliseum is a track stadium once again, its future remains clouded. USC and the Raiders, major football tenants of the Coliseum, are considering renovations that may include the lowering of the field to create more seats between the goal lines. That would mean destruction of the track.

Mike McGee, USC’s athletic director, said that the school is studying that option among others, adding that it’s premature to say that any specific plan has been adopted.

Supervisor Deane Dana, the president of the Coliseum Commission, has already gone on record opposing any plan that would eliminate the track. He is supported in his view by Mayor Tom Bradley.

If today’s meet isn’t successful at the gate, the Coliseum track isn’t necessarily doomed. But it would fortify the position of factions who contend that the track is just an ornament standing in the way of major improvements to the Coliseum.

In any event, today’s meet is expected to be an artistic success, even though Edwin Moses, Carl Lewis and Joaquim Cruz withdrew for reasons ranging from injury to fatigue.

A look at some of the events:

Triple jump--Mike Conley, who led Arkansas to the recent NCAA championship by winning the triple and long jumps and placing second in the 200, will be trying to take away Willie Banks’ American record of 57 feet 7 1/2 inches.

Conley had a wind-aided jump of 58-1 3/4 in the NCAA meet. He will be opposed by Banks and Olympic gold medalist Al Joyner.

Pole vault--Mike Tully will be trying to regain the American record that he lost to Oklahoma State’s Joe Dial, who recently improved the mark to 19-2. Brad Pursley, Dave Volz, Earl Bell and Tom Hintnaus will complete the world-class field.

Freakish winds at the Coliseum often work against the vaulters, but Tully managed to clear 19-0 3/4 there in the Olympic trials.

Sprints--Calvin Smith, the world record-holder in the 100 meters at 9.93 seconds, will be challenged by silver medalist Sam Graddy, Nigeria’s Chidi Imoh, USC’s Darwin Cook, Houston’s Kirk Baptiste and veteran Harvey Glance.

Smith will also be in the 200, along with Baptiste, the Olympic silver medalist; Roy Martin, the Dallas high school star, who almost made the Olympic team; Graddy, and Conley.

In the women’s 100, Jamaica’s Merlene Ottey-Page, who has the best time in the world this year, 10.92, will meet silver medalist Alice Brown.

The women’s 200 will match Valerie Brisco-Hooks, a triple gold-medal winner; silver medalist Florence Griffith, and Ottey-Page, a bronze medalist in both sprints. Brisco-Hooks, the U.S. record-holder in the 200 and 400, will also make her 1985 debut in the 400 today.

High jump--Jimmy Howard, the new American record-holder at 7-8 1/2, will have to be at his best to beat a field that includes Dwight Stones, the grand, old man of track and field at 31; Dennis Lewis; Doug Nordquist, and Milt Ottey.

Stones cleared 7-8 on the Coliseum apron in the Olympic trials. It was an American record at the time, since equaled by Lewis and broken by Howard.

Women’s 100-meter hurdles--This is a rematch of three of the four photo-finishers in the Olympic trials: Benita Fitzgerald-Brown, Pam Page and Stephanie Hightower, the American record-holder at 12.79. Fitzgerald-Brown went on to win the gold medal.

Women’s long jump--Carol Lewis, Carl’s sister, is coming off a win in the NCAA meet at Austin, Tex., where she leaped 22-1. UCLA’s Jackie Joyner failed to qualify in that meet, but she’s the collegiate record-holder at 22-11.

Other world-class athletes competing today include Andre Phillips and David Patrick, 400-meter intermediate hurdlers; Steve Scott, the U.S. record-holder in the mile and 1,500; Roger Kingdom, the Olympic gold medalist in the 110-meter hurdles; Johnny Gray, the U.S. record-holder in the 800; Gabriel Tiacoh of the Ivory Coast, the Olympic silver medalist in the 400; Jamaica’s Bert Cameron, the 1983 world champion in the 400; shotputters John Brenner, Brian Oldfield, Kevin Akins and Augie Wolf, and half-miler Ruth Wysocki.

Track Notes A clinic for youngsters in track, volleyball, basketball and physical fitness will be held at 3:30 p.m. at the west end of the Coliseum. Edwin Moses, Carl Lewis and Valerie Brisco-Hooks will participate in the track portion of the clinic. The clinic marks the start of the 1985 Summer Games program for youths in 350 recreation sites in Southern California. It is being funded by part of the surplus from the 1984 Summer Olympics. The clinic is expected to attract approximately 12,000 youngsters. . . . Pin-trading became a popular pastime during the Olympics. That activity will be revived at 10:30 a.m. at the peristyle end of the Coliseum. . . . Dwight Stones’ wife, Lynda, gave birth to a 7-pound 6-ounce girl named Jessica earlier in the week. The Stones have a 2-year-old son, Jason. . . . A special 1,500-meter wheelchair race, including Jim Knaub and Randy Snow, will be held at the conclusion of the track program.