BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 12 : Watts in Class of His Own in 400 : Track and field: USC quarter-miler, who is coached also by UCLA’s John Smith, sets an Olympic record of 43.50.

Telling a gifted sprinter he has to run the 400 meters is like telling a crown prince he has to find a job. What, me work? Quincy Watts reacted so badly to the order from his coach at USC that he quit track and became a football player.

One year as a member of the Trojans’ scout team convinced him that there are worse ways to earn a scholarship than running one lap.

“After a year as a dummy bag for linebackers, anything is worth a try,” Watts said Wednesday.

He said that while clutching the gold medal he had just earned for winning the Olympic 400 meters at Montjuic Stadium, less than two years after he turned his back on the sport.

His back was all that the seven other runners in the final saw of him. He ran the 400 in 43.50 seconds, an Olympic record and the second-fastest time ever.

Even more impressive was his margin of victory over former UCLA quarter-miler Steve Lewis, the defending champion who finished second Wednesday in 44.21. Kenya’s Samson Kitur was third in 44.24.

Not since the “Flying Scot,” Eric Liddell, won by eight-tenths of a second in 1924, and never in the 60-year history of automatic timing, had a 400-meter winner put so much distance between himself and the rest of the field.

“You’re just happy to be there,” said Lewis, of Fremont, Calif., when asked to describe his feelings after he realized Watts was so far in front of him. “You just try to get as close to him as possible and maybe you’ll get a fast time, too.”

Lewis’ time was not as fast as his 43.87 four years ago at Seoul, but he seemed content with another medal, one of four earned by Southern California track athletes Wednesday.

Johnny Gray of Los Angeles gained a bronze in the 800 meters behind two Kenyans, William Tanui and Nixon Kiprotich, and Janeene Vickers of Pomona got a bronze in the women’s 400-meter hurdles behind Britain’s Sally Gunnell and Sandra Farmer-Patrick of Pflugerville, Tex.

In other finals contested before a crowd of 64,900, discus thrower Romas Ubartas won the first gold medal for Lithuania since the former Soviet republic returned to the Olympic movement this year as an independent nation, and France’s Marie Jose-Perec won the women’s 400.

Watts, 22, who moved to Los Angeles from his native Detroit eight years ago, was the nation’s outstanding prep 100- and 200-meter runner as a junior and senior at Woodland Hills’ Taft High. The object of an intense recruiting battle between USC and UCLA, he chose the Trojans. But he was a disappointment during his first two years there, largely because of injuries.

USC’s coach, Jim Bush, thought Watts would be more effective as a 400-meter runner. Watts thought otherwise.

“When sprinters hear the words four hundred , something happens to them,” Watts said.

Watts quit to play football.

When he returned to the track, it was as a 400-meter runner, albeit a reluctant one.

“My first experience was a nightmare,” he said. “I felt very, very fatigued. My butt locked. Rigor mortis set in. A big bear jumped on my back, and I asked myself why I ever should think about running this race again.”

Although he recalls his time in that race in a meet at UC Irvine was 47.70, the answer soon became evident.

“Once he saw how much success he had in the 400, he stuck with it,” Bush said Wednesday by telephone while vacationing at Lake Tahoe, Nev., where he watched the race on television. “He had too many injuries for a sprinter, so he had no choice but to convert to the 400. Now, he’s the greatest quarter-miler in the world.”

His potential became apparent in 1991, his first full year in the event, when he finished second in the NCAA meet and third in the National Championships, earning a berth on the U.S. team that competed in the World Championships at Tokyo.

He won the NCAA title this year, and although he again finished third in the nationals, he became the favorite here after 1988 bronze medalist Danny Everett of Santa Monica re-injured his Achilles’ tendon in Monday’s semifinals and failed to advance to the final.

Watts ran 43.71 in the semifinals, breaking Lee Evans’ 24-year-old Olympic record of 43.86.

Before Wednesday’s final, he huddled with John Smith, the UCLA sprint coach who, along with USC’s Bush, has worked with Watts since 1991 in a rare, perhaps unprecedented, cooperative effort between crosstown rivals. Bush was Smith’s coach at UCLA 20 years ago.

“The one thing we never knew was what Steve had up his sleeve,” said Smith, who coached Lewis and Everett in 1988. “I told Quincy: ‘Keep your eyes on Steve.’ I told him: ‘If Steve takes off, you take off. Fly like a bird.’ ”

But Watts’ eyes were on the prize.

“If you want to know how somebody’s going to do, you look in their eyes,” said Everett, who watched the race from the competitors’ entrance to the track. “You can tell if they’re ready to run. Quincy was ready to run.”

Watts might have been too ready, running the first half of the race too fast. As a result, he had little left for the final few meters, enabling Butch Reynolds’ world record of 43.29 to remain unscathed.

“I got a little tight,” Watts said. “That came from a lot of anxiety and wanting to cross the finish line first. That was the only thing that mattered, winning the gold medal.”

Track and Field Medalists

MEN’S 400 METERS

GOLD: Quincy Watts (United States)

SILVER: Steve Lewis (United States)

BRONZE: Samson Kitur (Kenya)

MEN’S 800 METERS

GOLD: William Tanui (Kenya)

SILVER: Nixon Kiprotich (Kenya)

BRONZE: Johnny Gray (United States)

MEN’S DISCUS

GOLD: Romas Ubartas (Lithuania)

SILVER: Jurgen Schult (Germany)

BRONZE: Roberto Moya (Cuba)

WOMEN’S 400 METERS

GOLD: Marie-Jose Perec (France)

SILVER: Olga Bryzgina (CIS)

BRONZE: Ximena Restrepo Gaviria (Colombia)

WOMEN’S 400 HURDLES

GOLD: Sally Gunnell (Britain)

SILVER: Sandra Farmer-Patrick (U.S.)

BRONZE: Janeene Vickers (United States)

200 UPSET: Top-ranked Michael Johnson was eliminated during a 200-meter qualifying heat. C10

DRUG TESTS: U.S. hammer thrower Jud Logan and Belarus marathoner Madina Biktagirova test positive. C11