TV Actor Is Making Jump to a Bigger Stage : After Plugging Charge Cards and Beer, Stanton Is Looking Toward Olympics

He’s done television commercials this year plugging a charge card, a beer and a soft drink. Now, Brian Stanton, the former high-jumping star at Long Beach City College, figures the time has come to start promoting himself.

Which Stanton will perform this Sunday on the Pepsi Invitational stage at UCLA? In a 24-hour span last weekend, he played two roles, drawing rave reviews as an accomplished jumper, then playing a frustrated extra, basically the same part he has been playing for years.

“I hit the extreme top and the extreme bottom,” he said.

His career in a weekend started last Saturday at the Bruce Jenner meet in San Jose with a flop, and we’re not talking the Dick Fosbury variety. Stanton failed to clear 7 feet 1 1/2 inches, his starting height.

Afterward, he sat around, frustrated. He had cleared 7-6 1/2 a week earlier and was sure he could do better. So sure, in fact, that he decided that night to compete the next day at Mt. San Antonio College.

Stanton arrived at Mt. SAC and found 22 other high jumpers there, but few big names. The waiting between jumps would hardly be conducive to good marks, he figured. But, he told Doug Nordquist, he had a feeling about this day.

Another prominent jumper, Nordquist no doubt had heard such statements before. But this was Mt. SAC, and Stanton had enjoyed such success at the Walnut campus while at Long Beach that teammates nicknamed him Sac.

“Today will be different,” Stanton said.

“Yeah, sure,” Nordquist replied.

“No,” Stanton insisted. “Today will be different.”

Stanton was right. He sailed over at 7-0 on the first attempt, then passed at 7-2 1/2. He went back in and made good on his first try at 7-4 1/2. And 7-6 1/2. And, finally, 7-7 3/4 with room to spare, establishing a personal best by half an inch.

“Ninety percent of the people at Mt. SAC knew I would get it,” he said. “The other 10% were atheists.”

Stanton, who won The Athletics Congress title in 1985, gave the nonbelievers another jolt, raising the bar to 7-9. That height is the American record, held by Jerome Carter, Stanton’s good friend, and Thomas McCants. He missed twice, then, in an all-or-nothing approach, pushed it to 7-9 3/4 for the final try. He missed there, too, but had made his point.

The weekend had been salvaged and he had come back from disappointment to succeed. Again.

“That will help him at the (Olympic) trials and international competitions,” said Long Beach Coach Ron Allice, who, along with the school’s field-event specialist, Baruch Elias, has been working with Stanton for years. “He’s much stronger mentally than in earlier years because of how he has always bounced back.

“He was always that way. I remember one time during his freshman year, at Mt. SAC in the Southern California championships, I walked past Brian. He was sitting on the grass after the competition.

“ ‘How’d it go?’ I asked him. ‘I choked, coach,’ he said.

“That surprised me. Most guys would have said something about how the approach was wrong or how their coach told them the wrong thing to do. But he had no excuses.

“He’s not a crybaby. He’s not a hold-up artist. He just wants to jump.”

Stanton, a friendly, outgoing 27-year-old, agrees. Bring on the Pepsi meet, bring on the Olympic trials, bring on the Games.

“I think I’m ready for some high heights,” the 6-foot 6-inch, 180-pounder from Inglewood High School said. “I think it’s my year.

“I’m the right weight, the right strength and my approach is fluid. I feel like everything has come together.”

The American record is in focus, thanks to a refined run-up approach and renewed confidence. It has been before, of course, and he knows his history as well as anyone. But something tells him this year will be different.

Track Notes

Butch Reynolds, who had planned to assault Lee Evans’ 20-year-old world record of 43.86 seconds for 400 meters, has withdrawn after straining a hamstring. . . . Gwen Torrence, formerly of the University of Georgia, has been added to the women’s 400-meter field.

Detente lives, in many forms. Hurdlers Greg Foster of Diamond Bar and Tonie Campbell of Ontario held their summit a couple of months ago after a race in England and decided to call a truce in their feud. Actually, the two had said as much before, but this time they sat down and said it to one another. “Like they say, love thy neighbor,” Foster said. “I love Tonie Campbell.” . . . Add Foster: He has competed in 9 of the first 10 Pepsi Invitationals and won 8. The only time he didn’t win was when Renaldo Nehemiah ran a then-world record 13.00 in 1979. . . . And what of Nehemiah, a former rival who took another step on his comeback with a 13.57 at Tokyo in early May? “It’s a start,” Foster said. “You can’t count him out. I’m never going to count him out until the day he retires.”

Pole vaulter Mike Tully, off to a good start in the outdoor season with two marks over 19 feet, on his 19-0 that won the weather-plagued S&W; Modesto Invitational May 7: “It should have been higher. But it’s hard when it is pitch black and 48 degrees.”