Swimming / Tracy Dodds : Evans, Biondi in Running for Sullivan Award

Janet Evans and Matt Biondi, the Southern California swimmers who starred in the Olympics at Seoul, are among 10 finalists for the Sullivan Award, given each year to the outstanding amateur athlete in the country.

Swimming was the only sport with two finalists when the list was cut down from 46 by the Amateur Athletic Union’s selection committee.

The winner will be announced March 6 in Indianapolis.

Evans, who took only a brief break from swimming after the Olympics, is back competing for Placentia’s El Dorado High School. On Jan. 16 at Long Beach, she set a U.S. record in the 1,650-yard freestyle at 15 minutes 44.98 seconds, taking more than a second and a half off the nearly 6-year-old record set by Tiffany Cohen, 15:46.54.

Look for more American records to fall now that Evans will be swimming some major meets in yards, distances unique to the United States.

Since Evans broke her first world record in July, 1987, the major meets have been long course (meters) in preparation for the ’88 Olympic Games. But the U.S. swimmers will be competing in yards in some major meets, including the Phillips 66-U.S. Swimming Short Course Nationals at Chapel Hill, N.C., March 21-25.

At that meet, Evans is expected to swim the 400-yard individual medley, the 500-yard freestyle, the 200-yard individual medley and the 1,000-yard freestyle.

With the 1,650 record already in hand, she will skip that event in North Carolina.

Biondi isn’t doing any competitive swimming these days, but he has been staying in shape to be ready for the tryouts for the U.S. water polo team, to be held at Newport Beach Feb. 4 and 5.

Since most of the water polo team retired after the 1988 Games, Coach Bill Barnett has a lot of spaces to fill.

Besides doing speaking engagements and some commercial appearances, Biondi was back in the waters off the coast of Florida, swimming with dolphins for an ABC-TV special with Curt Gowdy that shows an apparent special communication between dolphins and children with Down’s syndrome. ABC will televise the special April 2.

Biondi also has been kept pretty busy accepting awards and still has a few more to pick up.

Biondi already has been named United Press International’s sportsman of the year and the United States Olympic Committee’s sportsman of the year. Not to mention being named Italian-American man of the year.

Included in a long list of appointments is his Feb. 3 date at Boca Raton, Fla., for a basketball slam dunk contest against the likes of Carl Lewis.

Although he is staying busy, Biondi isn’t cashing in on his 7 medals. When he passed through New York last month on a tour of 12 cities in 8 days, Biondi told John Nelson of the Associated Press that he was in the wrong sport for making big bucks. And, he said, 1988 wasn’t the best Olympic year for cashing in, either.

“No one is going to get rich from these Olympics except maybe Flo Jo, if she plays it right,” Biondi said, referring to track star Florence Griffith Joyner.

“There were so many controversies--steroids, television, the boxing--and then there was the time difference. I think people got kind of turned off. Advertisers realize that.

“I heard one advertiser’s quote. He said, ‘Our company would rather sponsor events than athletes, because events don’t do drugs or beat their wives.’ It’s getting harder for the athlete instead of easier.”

Explaining why swimming isn’t as potentially lucrative as other Olympic sports such as boxing or figure skating, and why swimmers don’t draw top endorsements, Biondi said: “The Olympics is only once every 4 years, and for that magical week, everybody is watching and reading about it. But to stay on top, you have to be heard from a little more often than that.”

USC and UCLA are undefeated in swimming this season. USC is 6-0 and already has 10 swimmers qualified for the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. meet. That’s the most the Trojans have ever qualified before the Pac-10 meet.

Helping build that total are the 1988 Olympians on the USC team, who missed the first semester because of the trip to Seoul but are allowed to use Olympic times for qualifying times.

The Trojans are competing this weekend in the Dallas Classic at Southern Methodist, swimming against SMU, Texas, Stanford, California and Michigan.

The Bruins (7-0) already have Mark Dean qualified for the NCAA meet. Dean qualified for the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 1:47.25 in a meet against Arizona State Jan. 13.

Also on the Bruin team is breaststroker Andrea Cecci, who was the Italian national champion in the 100-meter and 200-meter breaststroke.

The Trojans and the Bruins are both 2-0 in the Pac-10. They will not meet until Feb. 25.

The USC women’s swim team is 5-4 and has four women qualified for the NCAA meet. Leslie Daland and Kathy Hettche have qualified in the 1,650--Daland at 16:33.63 and Hettche at 16:37.93--as well as Leslie Seward in the 200-yard breaststroke and Terri O’Loughlin in the 100-yard butterfly.

The UCLA women are 8-1 after a big victory at Cal last weekend. The Bruin women have lost only to Stanford, which is as strong as usual.

U.S. Swimming, in keeping with its philosophy of getting international experience for a wide range of swimmers, is sending a team of 6 to the Coca-Cola International Meet at Paris Feb. 3-5 and the Meetings Arena at Bonn, West Germany, Feb. 10-12.

On the team will be Steve Crocker of St. Louis, Matt Rankin of the Click Tucson team, Beth Barr of the Greater Pensacola Swim Team, Whitney Hedgepeth of the Virginia Assn. for Competitive Aquatics, Ann Mahoney of the Wichita Swim Club and Jenny Thompson of the Seacost Swim Team. Jay Fitzgerald of the Santa Clara Swim Club is going as the coach.