Dream of Olympic Gold Still Very Much Alive, but Reality Is Tougher : Comeback: Sports doctors differ on girl’s future in track, but one college athlete with same problem gives her pep talk.

Ashley Bethel’s dream of emulating Olympic gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee didn’t die when a stray golf ball from Saddleback College’s driving range destroyed the vision in her right eye. But experts say the odds--however great they were before--are more daunting now for the 14-year-old track and field prodigy from Lake Forest.

Dr. Alan Berman, co-director of the Institute for Sports Vision in Ridgefield, Conn., and an optometrist who works with the National Basketball Assn.’s New York Knicks and the National Hockey League’s New York Rangers, was a consultant for the U.S. Olympic decathlon team in 1992, so he understands the vision demands on track athletes.

“The first concern, of course, is depth perception,” Berman said. “You need two eyes seeing relatively equally to get three-dimensional vision and, depending on the event she’s competing in, she will be facing a number of different problems.

“In the high jump, for instance, it may be difficult for her to get her timing on the takeoff. In the long jump, judging the (takeoff) mark will be a problem. And the timing of the jumps in the hurdles will be more difficult.

“Her lack of peripheral vision on the blind side can be a problem too. In the sprints, for instance, she won’t be able to see an opponent coming up behind her.”

Dr. Bill Harrison, a Laguna Beach optometrist who is a consultant for baseball’s Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves and has been active in the sports vision field for more than 25 years, is more optimistic.

“If she were a quarterback or a basketball player, I don’t think she could play professionally,” he said, “but in track and field, I don’t think there’s any event she can’t compete in effectively, and I wouldn’t rule out her ability to compete on any level.

“Fortunately, she’s young enough to adapt her perception process. If she were 30, it would be harder. Initially, of course, she’s going to struggle with hitting the mark at the right spot when she long jumps, and the hurdles might be a challenge. She’ll certainly have some frustration for a period of months, but once she works through it, I see no reason she shouldn’t be able to master those events.”

Billy Ivey is living proof it can be done. In 1988, at Edgewood High School in West Covina, he set a Southern Section 2-A record in the triple jump (49 feet, 1 1/4 inches) that still stands. Now a football player and track athlete at Mt. San Antonio College, Ivey will attend the University of Montana on a football scholarship next fall.

Ivey suffered three childhood injuries to his left eye: A playmate threw a piece of glass that cut the cornea in half when he was 7; a friend’s fingernail re-injured the eye during a pickup football game a couple of years later, and he lost the eye when a sign fell off a porch and landed on it.

“I was 13, (about the) same age as Ashley, when I had my eye taken out and got a prosthesis,” Ivey said, “and I went out and played in a Junior All-American football game the same day.”

“I’ve talked to Ashley and told her not to worry. Your body starts to compensate after a while. Especially in track. Most of those events you count your steps, anyway. You could run the hurdles with your eyes closed.”

Vince O’Boyle, men’s and women’s track and field coach at UC Irvine, agrees that Bethel still has a future in track.

“She’s going to have to make adjustments, but in this sport she can work through a lot of events,” O’Boyle said. “If you’re doing it right in the hurdles, you count three steps, and there’s the hurdle. You take so many steps down the runway (in the long or triple jump) and your step will be right on the mark.

“Whether she can do it on the highest levels, that’s really hard to say.”

Ivey never lost sight of his goals, and soon he will be playing major college football. He will play defensive back at Montana, but he was a running back in high school and continually amazed his coaches with his ability to run through traffic and find holes in the line despite the lack of peripheral vision.

Ivey was introduced to Bethel by Olympic hurdler Tony Campbell and spent some time with her after the accident.

“The first thing she is going to go through will be the ‘why me?’ stage,” Ivey said. “Then it will be her friends, or so-called friends. I told her she should expect some rude remarks, even taunting. You know, kids can be the rudest.

“She’s already noticed how people’s attitudes have changed, but I told her the best thing she can do is get back to her everyday life as soon as possible. And as soon as the doctor clears her to compete, she should start competing again.

“She really opened up to me. She had a lot of questions. I think she was relieved when I told her that even with all the hits in football, (the prosthesis) has never popped out.”

Berman has seen a number of athletes overcome vision handicaps. He says he works with some professional athletes who are virtually blind in one eye but won’t name names. “They don’t want anyone to know because they fear opponents could use it against them.”

But he also believes a small disadvantage becomes an increasingly larger burden as one progresses up through the levels of competitive sports.

“When it comes to the world-class level, hundredths of seconds, the smallest advantages that one athlete has over another, those are the differences between winning and losing,” he said.

Still, Bethel has every intention of finding out what it takes to win on that level. And Joyner-Kersee, the three-time Olympic gold medalist whose record in the multi-event heptathlon has long been Bethel’s ultimate goal, called her in the hospital to tell her she is praying she gets the chance.