Sprinter Stanley Floyd, who competed in last...

Sprinter Stanley Floyd, who competed in last Friday night’s Sunkist Invitational in the Sports Arena despite being ineligible, said he thought he had been declared eligible to run, and blamed the mix-up on “a lack of communications.”

“I thought I was eligible,” Floyd said from his Houston home. “Evidently, so did (meet director) Al Franken.”

Floyd lost his track eligibility May 7, 1983, when he signed with the Atlanta Falcons of the NFL, although he never played in a regular-season game in either the NFL or the USFL, where he tried out with the Los Angeles Express in 1984.

Floyd assumed, he said, that when Renaldo Nehemiah was reinstated as an amateur by the International Amateur Athletic Federation after a pro football career with the 49ers that the decree included himself, too. However, the IAAF ruled that each case must be handled individually and that Floyd had not been granted reinstatement.