Time Is Now for Big Ben : Johnson Makes His Comeback Against an Exceptional Field in Hamilton Games Tonight

It has been a week of spirited fighting within Canada’s otherwise agreeable track and field community, a week in which the sport’s usually timid federation banned a coach for life, a week of jangled nerves and restless anticipation.

Finally, as if things haven’t been wacky enough, along comes track and field’s rarest complaint--that meet promoters, in assembling the field for tonight’s 50-meter dash that will mark Ben Johnson’s return to competition after a two-year suspension, have put together a field that is too competitive.

This has to rank among the sport’s oddest criticisms. But then, the world has come to expect the unusual where Johnson is concerned.

And now, more than two years after he lost his Olympic gold medal and world record for failing a drug test, the world is coming to see what Johnson can do without the aid of performance-enhancing drugs.

Johnson’s reputation has drawn more than 300 reporters from more than 20 countries to the Hamilton Spectator Indoor Games, in the past never more than a blip on the indoor schedule. But Johnson’s first race back--his second will be in Los Angeles next Friday night--has been sufficient to attract this media blitz.

NBC will show a tape of Johnson’s race during its “NFL Live” postgame show Saturday.

To no one’s great surprise, Johnson has also attracted controversy, although in a form that has taken many aback.

“Athletics officials in Canada have been very critical of our field,” said Paul Gains, who together with Cecil Smith has organized this meet. “Very critical. They want us to give him an easier field to deal with in his first race back. They say, ‘Mike Tyson didn’t have to face Evander Holyfield in his first bout after losing the title.’

“We feel we have an obligation to our ticket-buyers. People know when you’ve been chintzy and when you’ve cheated them. The sport is more than one athlete. We put together the best field we could. If there weren’t a Ben Johnson, we would still have this field.”

Some athletes prefer to skip the indoor season entirely, even in this year of the World Indoor Championships in March at Seville, Spain. But among those competing here against Johnson will be Patrick Williams of Jamaica, who last season ran the 100 meters in 10.06 seconds; Mike Marsh, a 1988 Olympian, and Andre Cason, the world junior 100-meter champion.

Dennis Mitchell, who was fourth in the ’88 Olympic 100 meters, withdrew Wednesday because of a leg injury.

Track and field athletes have refined a kind of international hopscotch, avoiding their closest rivals lest they lose a race and lower the amount of an appearance fee they can demand.

Johnson will receive $30,000 to run in Los Angeles against a field that can charitably be described as weak. As an athletic event, it’s great television. Little fuss is made about such matchups because, except for major championships and meets with budgets in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, depth in a sprint race is not a reality.

That’s what is so odd about tonight’s race at Copps Coliseum--the field includes many top sprinters.

Johnson may be the only person involved who has made no comment on the field. His former coach, Charlie Francis, said the competition would be like “kicking him while he’s down.” Ed Futerman, Johnson’s attorney, has said he’s “disappointed” with the tough field, but reportedly he actually is enraged and has communicated his anger to the meet organizers.

Gains and Smith are baffled.

“If the guy wants to run in a world-class meet, come on,” Gains said. “If not, there are lots of all-comers’ meets where Ben could have run against a different level of athlete. I’m not sure I know why we have to apologize for assembling a world-class field.”

Why indeed? Perhaps it is because there are many people who want Johnson to do well and to look good in the process. There are people whose livelihoods depend on Johnson’s success--and not just his agent, his manager and his attorney.

Gains and others suggest that television, the sport’s major sponsors and even Canadian track and field officials all have a vested interest in seeing to it that Johnson’s return occurs without a surprise, such as being blown out in his first race on international television for a reported $8,000 to $10,000, plus a percentage of the gate.

“Obviously, Athletics Canada (the sport’s national governing body) would like to have a good relationship with Johnson,” Gains said. “After Seoul, they had a $500,000 deficit. All their sponsors fell through. They had planned all their marketing around Johnson.”

Clearly, there are many agendas at work here. In the same way that Johnson’s fall from grace in 1988 was seen as delivering the fatal blow to track and field’s already tarnished image, so is his return charged with rejuvenating interest among potential sponsors and the public.

It is a heavy burden and one that Johnson himself has complained about. He said in 1987: “Before I was big, nobody had time for me. Now I am big, everybody want to ride the big train.”

On that train are the meet promoters here, who are reaping the windfall of the week’s headlines. “It’s a certainty that we’ll have a record crowd, and a probability that we’ll have a sellout,” Gains said.

The record at Hamilton? Nearly 12,000 came out to see Johnson in January 1988, a few months after their national hero had set the world record of 9.83 seconds at 100 meters in the World Championships at Rome.

The capacity of Copps Coliseum is about 17,000. With all the publicity the meet and Johnson have received, it looks as if a big profit is right around the bend for anyone riding the big train, again.