End of His Ban Only Starts the Questions : Track and field: Marketability of Ben Johnson after suspension for steroid use poses a gamble for promoters.

It was a scene that recalled the golden days for Ben Johnson. Almost. The media were there, as before, chronicling a news conference. Johnson was as before, shy and yet brimming with confidence. There was the bluster, the bragging, the promise of big things to come.

This scene, which played out two weeks ago in Italy, was familiar, with one exception. The new element was the pervasive skepticism that now attends Johnson’s boasts. Overweening confidence among world class athletes is well accepted--even expected. However, part of the expectation includes the understanding that the athlete can back up the boasts.

Johnson will at last get his chance to do that. It has been two years since Johnson, then world record-holder at 100 meters, was stripped of his gold medal after testing positive for anabolic steroids at the Seoul Olympics. Johnson was also suspended from competition for two years; that suspension ends today. And so the questions begin: What can Johnson do when not assisted by performance-enhancing drugs?

“Once he returns to the sport, and if he returns a winner, all is forgiven,” said Paul Gaines, assistant meet director for the Hamilton Spectator Indoor Games, the Canadian meet to be held Jan. 11 that will mark Johnson’s return to competition. “I think that is the attitude the public will display. You hear grumblings among media types and in some circles of the sport, but you have to give the guy the benefit of the doubt.

“When this happened, it was a bitter disappointment for everyone in the sport to acknowledge that the No. 1 athlete in the sport was using drugs. With the accolades cast upon him in the previous years, people were resentful. With the humility and shame that has been reflected on him, people tend to be more open minded about it. They hope the guy comes back clean and fast.”

Clean and fast. To some in track and field that represents a contradiction in terms. It is this apparent contradiction that Ben Johnson must overcome in his comeback. Charlie Francis, who coached Johnson for 12 years, estimated that steroids made Johnson faster by one meter. How much ground will Johnson lose as a drug-free sprinter?

Johnson, speaking at a news conference in Castelfranco Veneto, Italy, expressed little doubt he can regain his form of 1988.

“I want to take back the titles and the records I have been deprived of,” the Associated Press quoted Johnson as saying. “I have been training very hard recently. I am at 90% right now. By strengthening training, I will be 100% by January. I have decided to start again to show everybody I’m still the best. I’m convinced I can set a new world record.”

BIG MONEY

Promoters of indoor meets this season doubt that Johnson will regain his records, but they hope that fans will turn out in huge numbers to watch him try. Indeed, in a season that holds the promise of high performance levels in general (as athletes peak for the world indoor championships in Seville, Spain, in March), Johnson’s return to competition might help rejuvenate a sport in need of public interest.

Al Franken, promoter of the Sunkist Invitational, is close to signing Johnson for his Jan. 18 meet, saying Johnson will receive the highest appearance fee Franken has ever paid--$30,000, compared to the $23,000 Franken paid Carl Lewis. And there is a bonus in the contract that rewards Johnson for high attendance figures.

“I think honestly, you have to figure that a lot of it is curiosity,” Franken said. “You’ll get people who don’t care about track, and you may attract back people who have quit coming to track. We need a push in the sport. It’s been struggling. We need a hype. Someone who is a ticket seller. Ben sort of transcends the sport, and, God knows, we need someone to transcend the sport.”

Transcendent is the word for the appearence fees Johnson will reportedly earn. His value in Europe and Japan has not waned. He will be paid $60,000 for a meet in Stockholm. But American meet directors say they can’t pay that kind of money, especially for an unproven runner.

“If he’s eligible to compete, to me, Ben Johnson is an attraction,” said Ray Lumpp, meet director for the indoor meet at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J.. “I’d like to have Ben Johnson regardless of how he runs. But how well he’s running will determine his value. That’s the key. Whether he is worth as much after six meets, I don’t know. You’re only as good as your last race, and the fans know that.”

Howard Schmertz of the Millrose Games in New York has an interest in Johnson, but perhaps not the budget.

“There is a lot of interest in seeing whether this fellow is a truly great runner or if he is what Carl Lewis said he is, a fair runner who got there by taking drugs,” Schmertz said.

“I have no way of knowing. As far as the money, I expect a lot of big stars and I’m going to have a lot of problems giving out (big appearence fees). If you give him $10,000 and people are beating him, you could have problems.”

Already the backlash has begun. There is talk of informal athlete boycotts in Canada, where indoor meets often provide car fare and little else to star athletes. Johnson reportedly will be paid $10,000 (Canadian) for the meet in Hamilton, a figure that has caused some jealousy among his peers.

Lumpp, who traditionally has one of the largest budgets in North America, said resentment is a problem faced every season by meet directors. “How many heavy hitters can a meet afford?” he said. “There are very few secrets among athletes, especially when there’s X dollars given to one athlete.”

Hamilton promoter Gaines has heard it before, and makes no apology for paying Johnson more than other athletes. “My answer to that is ‘Who puts (fans) in the seats? Right now, I can’t think of anybody who would arouse as much interest as Ben Johnson.”

It would be ironic if Johnson becomes the star who revitalizes indoor track and field after being blamed for the steady decline of sponsor interest in outdoor track.

“There has been damage to the sport and people want to blame Ben personally for that damage,” Gaines said. “We are very cognizant of the fact that people are looking upon his return with something like skepticism and animosity. To what extent, we don’t know.”

Some meet directors report concern that longtime sponsors will be reluctant to be associated with a meet that has Johnson as its marquee athlete, given Johnson’s former association with anabolic steroids. Franken said he had meetings with his sponsor, Sunkist, to discuss the possible image problem.

Schmertz, too, has given the matter some thought.

“I’ve had that thought myself, paying him that much money,” he said. “He was the greatest sprinter in history, then he was caught. Now he’s got a lot of notoriety. He probably thinks he can be paid more because of the notoriety. It’s a very complicated issue. I don’t know how the public is going to react. Are they going to treat him as someone who has paid his penalty and now he’s clean? I don’t know. These questions have gone through my mind.”

Will Kern, meet director for the Times Indoor Games, hesitates at considering it a moral issue. “It’s kind of perplexing, isn’t it?,” Kern said. “I’m not God. I can’t say that it’s wrong, especially when deep down I know Johnson’s not the only one who’s ever taken drugs.”

One thing that may not happen is a much-discussed lucrative match race between Johnson and Lewis.

“I will never allow it to happen,” Primo Nebiolo, president of the International Amateur Atheltic Federation, said Sunday. “We do not allow two-horse races.”

A NEW CAST

Johnson, 28, has passed at least four drug tests during his suspension. He has been an outspoken opponent of drug use and has spent the last year speaking to children, warning them against performance-enhancing drugs.

Many of those around Johnson have changed, too. Francis is no longer his coach, having been replaced by Loren Seagrave, former women’s coach at Louisiana State University. Others in Johnson’s inner circle are Larry Heidebrecht, his agent; Kameel Azan, a Jamaican-born Toronto businessman and former hairdresser who is Johnson’s adviser; and Ed Futerman, Johnson’s attorney.

The key words in the Johnson camp are Damage Control, or more simply, control. Futerman limits Johnson’s contact with the media, saying “Ben has said all he has to say. We don’t need any more media.” However, it was Futerman who offered to permit a British journalist to interview Johnson--if he paid $10,000 and submitted his questions in advance. Johnson gave an in-depth interview to the German magazine, Sport, but only after being paid.

Other than that, he has had a low profile. He still is awaiting word from the Canadian Olympic Assn., which placed a lifetime ban on Johnson that prohibited him from representing Canada in the Olympic Games. The COA will meet on Friday and is expected to lift the ban.

That may go a long way to easing Johnson back into a sport that disowned him almost as swiftly as he burst on the scene.

What happened to Johnson after his positive test in Seoul is similar to what used to happen to famous East Europeans after defection. Any trace of them in their former countries disappeared. They no longer existed. Similarly, Johnson was erased from track and field’s record books. Not only did he have to give back the gold medal, but he lost two world records, causing the sport to change its rules in order to take them.

The IAAF voted last September to adopt the controversial “Ben Johnson Rule” allowing the IAAF Council to decertify an athlete’s records, titles and results if he or she later is shown to have used a banned substance before those performances.

The action gave the IAAF power to erase all of Johnson’s results between June 12, 1983, and June 12, 1989. Even though Johnson admitted to having taken drugs since 1981, the rule carries a six-year statue of limitations. The rule stripped Johnson of his world record of 9.83 in the 100 meters and 6.41 in the indoor 60 meters. Already gone was the 9.79 race from the Olympics.

The records are gone but not forgotten. The question remains, is Ben Johnson capable of running at that brilliant level again? Meet promoters are willing to pay to find out. If the public will pay to watch Johnson is another question.

Said Lumpp of the Meadowlands, “You don’t have just a track and field story here, you have a human interest story. Here’s a person who has reached the top of everything, lost it all, and now he’s coming back to run. Will he be the same Johnson? I don’t know, but people are willing to find out.”