Fields Misses Meet, Blames TAC Selectors

For the past year, distance-runner Farron Fields had trained with one goal in mind: to represent the United States in this year’s world cross-country championships in Auckland, New Zealand.

Fields, 26, was selected as the first alternate on the national team when he placed 10th in the U. S. cross-country trials Feb. 14 in Dallas. Therefore, if any of the first nine finishers at the nationals withdrew from the meet, Fields would replace him.

But when Bruce Bickford, who placed fourth at the trials, withdrew with a hip injury March 3, approximately three weeks before the World Championships on March 26, Fields was not informed.

The Athletics Congress, the governing body for track and field and distance running in the United States, never contacted Fields because he failed to fill out a form after the trials race.

Consequently, the 1979 graduate of Granada Hills High did not run in the World Championships in Auckland, New Zealand, two weeks ago. Art Waddle of Southeast Missouri State, who placed 12th in the trials, did.

“We had no way of getting hold of Farron,” TAC spokesman Pete Cava said. “He didn’t fill out the information forms after the race. The only way we could have found him was to get up on a mountaintop and scream out his name and hope someone who heard us knew where he was.”

Fields said no one told him to fill out the forms, the filing of which is not mandatory to make the U. S. team.

“I was taken by a race official to the drug-testing tent immediately after I had finished,” Fields said. “I didn’t even have time to put on my sweats. I crossed the line and an official literally grabbed me by the arm and took me to the drug-testing area.”

Dehydrated from the race, it took Fields an hour and a half to produce the required urine sample, after which he went back to his hotel.

“No one told me to go anywhere else,” said Fields, who according to TAC passed the drug test. “If I had known I had to fill out forms, I definitely would have.”

Even without the forms, The Athletics Congress should have been able to find Fields without too much trouble. He receives mail from TAC on a weekly basis and the organization is in the process of clearing $500 in prize money that he won in December.

Team officials say a replacement had to be found quickly, that there was not time to track down Fields, who lives in Northridge.

When Bickford pulled out, U. S. Coach Bob Sevene was in the process of securing tickets for the plane flight to New Zealand with a Pasadena travel agency. In order to get the discount rate of $895 for a round trip from Los Angeles to Auckland, TAC had to make its reservations well in advance of the March 17 departure date. If TAC had waited until a week before the departure, a travel agent confirmed, it would have cost $1,500 per person.

“That’s what made things really difficult,” Sevene said. “Bruce pulled out at the last second and we had to find a replacement in the next 36-48 hours.”

Sevene contacted Bernie Wagner, the TAC official in charge of international team selection. Wagner was unable to find an information form on Fields and told Sevene to contact Paul Gompers, the 11th-place finisher at the trials.

Sevene said it took him six to eight hours to reach Gompers, who is attending graduate school at Oxford University in London, and Gompers decided not to compete because he felt it would interfere with his training for the U. S. Olympic Marathon Trials on April 24.

Waddle, the 1987 NCAA Division II champion in the 10,000 meters, was next on TAC’s list and he accepted.

“I feel for Farron,” Sevene said in retrospect. “He’s got every right in the world to be upset. He should have filled out the forms, but even if he didn’t, someone should have done five or six hours’ worth of phone work and he could have been found.

“Because of the time constraints, I don’t think Bernie made that big an effort to get hold of Fields, which is unfortunate. I know the World Championships mean a lot to most runners. Waddle cried when he heard he was going to run, and I’m sure it did the same to Farron.”

Fields’ tears were not of joy.

“I’m very disappointed and hurt,” he said. “This has really been traumatic for me. I couldn’t believe it when I found out about it. It seems like a nightmare.

“I have nothing against the guy who went instead of me. But I beat him at the trials and I deserved to go. . . . I don’t think something like this would have happened in East Germany or Great Britain. They’d make sure that they were sending their best possible team. The TAC didn’t seem to care. If they did, you’d think they’d have contacted me.”

Fields intends to speak with Don Kardong, head of TAC’s long-distance running committee, to ensure other runners don’t suffer the same fate.

“This type of thing should never have occurred at this level of athletics,” Fields said.