TRACK AND FIELD : Police Stops Have Al Joyner Stopped

Olympic gold medalist Al Joyner’s return to competition has been put on hold after his run-ins with L.A. police last Friday. Joyner was scheduled to compete at two meets on Saturday but did not show.

Joyner was driving his wife’s sports car along Hollywood Boulevard Friday and was stopped twice within two blocks by police, who said they had reason to believe Joyner had committed felonies. In the first incident, Joyner was approached by police with their guns drawn, was handcuffed and made to kneel on the sidewalk.

Police had misread Joyner’s vanity license plates and stopped him when their computer indicated that the plates were registered to a truck. Police surmised that Joyner had stolen the plates and put them on a stolen car.

The second incident took place less than two blocks later. Police said that Joyner’s car matched the description of a car involved in a hit-and-run accident. Joyner was exonerated in both incidents.

Joyner, the 1984 Olympic gold medalist in the triple jump, has been attempting to come back since a car accident in late 1990 hampered his training. Joyner, who is coached by Tommy Lee White and his wife, Florence Griffith Joyner, has been trying achieve a qualifying time for the Olympic trials in the 100-meter hurdles.

After what happened Friday, Joyner said, he didn’t feel like running.

“Last night I went to bed and woke up screaming,” he said Saturday. “I couldn’t sleep. I finally got up around 3 a.m. I wasn’t myself.”

Joyner said that when police approached him with their guns drawn, he saw his life flash before his eyes.

“I finally got home and just hugged Florence and my baby,” he said. “To think I could have died and lost my family. . . . “

Joyner spent the weekend in a hotel with his baby daughter, Mary.

“I wanted to spend time with her alone,” he said. “I don’t do enough of that. I’m just thinking about the world she is going to grow up in.”

Joyner said he knew he wouldn’t compete at meets at UCLA and Occidental College Saturday when he remembered his dreams of Friday night.

“I was trying to focus on the meet,” he said. “I was trying to think about getting out of the blocks. But all I could see after the gun went off was myself lying on the ground.”

Joyner said he does not know when he will be able to resume training because he can’t get the memory of his fear out of his mind.

“My strength in track has always been my mental preparation,” he said. “I don’t have that now. I’m going to see a psychiatrist or somebody to help me. I have to talk this over with someone. I need to get help. I’m trying to get my mind back.”

Joyner, one of track and field’s most easy-going athletes, said he is worried about being permanently changed by the incidents.

“I’m a happy guy,” he said. “I smile all the time. I don’t hate anyone. But to know that this happened because of the color of my skin. That hurts. What’s bothering me about the police is that if something happens to my home, these are the people who are going to come.”

Something of a miracle has happened in Long Beach.

The city of Long Beach sold Veterans’ Stadium to Long Beach City College for $1. The school raised $1.5 million to renovate the facility, putting down a new all-weather track and adding a physical education facility and weight room underneath the stadium.

The stadium was dedicated Feb. 11.

All of this while track programs are being cut everywhere else.

LBCC President Beverly O’Neill said there was tremendous community support for the track, saying that $600,000 was donated by the school’s student association.

“We had a track but it was disreputable,” O’Neill said. “People wanted this to happen.”

Coincidentally, Long Beach CC’s men’s track team won the Southern California Championships Saturday at Santa Barbara.

The school will play host to the Southern California Junior College Championships this weekend.

Promoter Al Franken says he is trying to put together a major meet here after the Olympics, featuring top Olympic stars.

A first response is, fat chance.

“In the old days, American Olympians would come back and want to be in this kind of meet,” Franken said. “They would want to come home after the Olympics and let people see them.”

In these new days, nobody goes anywhere without being paid first. The budget for such a meet would be, by a conservative guess, more than $300,000, Franken said. That kind of money requires a corporate sponsor, which Franken is seeking. Given the waning interest in the sport, Franken will need all the luck he can get.

The tentative date is Sept. 12 at Long Beach Veterans Stadium.

“It’s hard to do, but it’s worth trying,” Franken said.

No surprise in the International Amateur Athletic Federation’s decision Monday to uphold Butch Reynolds’ two-year ban.

The IAAF is a group whose system of justice for athletes begins with a presumption of guilt.

It also has no concept of conflict of interest. The IAAF administers the international drug testing of athletes. The IAAF decides on appeals of its testing procedures. Why would anyone reasonably expect the IAAF to criticize itself?

If an executive in a major corporation were suspected of cooking the books, would he be appointed to audit himself?

The IAAF’s arrogance and disregard for honest review of its procedures will, one day, in some court, be stopped.

Track Notes

Almost unnoticed a few weeks ago was decathlete Dave Johnson’s second-day score of 4,411 in a meet at Azusa Pacific. That was a world record for a second day, indicating much improvement by Johnson. . . . At a low-key all-comers meet in Austin, Tex., last weekend Mike Marsh quietly ran a 19.94 in the 200 and Gwen Torrence ran 21.84.

Sprinter Michael Johnson is expected to decide soon which race he’ll run in the Olympics, the 200 or the 400. Johnson wants to double but a scheduling conflict makes that impossible. Rumor has Johnson leaning toward the 200. . . . Olympic years bring out the world’s best. The New York Games, May 24, has attracted an all-star field. Among the entries in the men’s 100 are former world record-holders Leroy Burrell and Calvin Smith, and the fast-improving Marsh. Said Aouita, Joe Falcon, Frank O’Mara and Marcus O’Sullivan are entered in the men’s mile, and Evelyn Ashford, Torrence and Mary Onyali are entered in the women’s 100.

Long jump world record-holder Mike Powell is entered in this weekend’s S&W; Modesto Invitational. Powell has requested that the long jump landing area be extend by five feet. . . . 1984 Olympian Jeanette Bolden will conduct her third annual asthma and allergy clinic at Santa Monica College on June 13. Bolden, who overcame severe asthma to become one of the country’s best sprinters, will demonstrate track and field techniques and talk about being an athlete with asthma. Details: the Los Angeles Asthma and Allergy Foundation.