Suspended Shotputter Barnes Signs Two-Year Deal With 49ers

Suspended shotputter Randy Barnes has signed a two-year contract as a free agent with the San Francisco 49ers, thus ending his long fight to regain his eligibility in track and field.

By signing the contract, Barnes, the world record-holder in the shotput, became a professional athlete. According to officials of The Athletics Congress, which governs track and field in the United States, Barnes will not be eligible to compete in the sport so long as he plays professional football.

Barnes was already under a two-year suspension after testing positive for methyltestosterone, an anabolic steroid, at a meet in Malmo, Sweden, last Aug. 7. His suspension would have kept the 1988 Olympic silver medalist from competing in the 1991 World Championships and the 1992 Olympic Games. Barnes set his world record of 75 feet 10 1/4 inches in Los Angeles last summer.

Barnes has maintained his innocence and vigorously fought the suspension but recently exhausted his appeals within TAC.

Barnes, 6 feet 4 and 300 pounds, participated in a 49er mini-camp in April and again this month. He signed last Friday and is listed as a nose tackle.

Barnes last played football seven years ago in high school in West Virginia.

John McVay, the 49er executive who signed Barnes, acknowledged the 49ers took a risk.

“Some others have done it,” McVay told the Associated Press. “We had success with Jeff Stover, which motivated us in this project.

Stover was a former shotputter with no college experience when he made the 49ers as a free agent in 1982, the same year the team signed world-record hurdler Renaldo Nehemiah with hopes of turning him into a game-breaking wide receiver.

The 49ers also have another former track star on the team, shotputter-nose tackle Michael Carter.