WORLD SPORTS SCENE / RANDY HARVEY : He Might Be Right, but Who Is He to Talk?

Words to inspire as athletes prepare for the USA-Mobil Outdoor Track and Field Championships that begin today at Knoxville, Tenn.:

“Track and field is the sports equivalent of the witness protection program; it’s a place where you can be completely anonymous,” actor Kevin Pollack said upon presenting an ESPY award to sprinter Michael Johnson.

Michael Johnson, we know. But Kevin Pollack?

*

Pollack, of course, is not entirely incorrect. Track and field seldom enters into the average American sports fan’s consciousness, a reality for which the sport’s officials, athletes and agents have only themselves to blame.

The meet at Knoxville is one of the two best in the country this year--the other is the United States-Africa dual meet scheduled for Durham, N.C., in August--and should be a showcase for the top U.S. athletes.

Many will be there, including Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Gail Devers, Gwen Torrence, Mike Powell, Quincy Watts, Butch Reynolds, Kevin Young, Dan O’Brien and Johnson.

But because of friction between USA Track and Field and the Santa Monica Track Club, three of the world’s fastest sprinters--Carl Lewis, Leroy Burrell and Mike Marsh--are planning to boycott.

No matter what the issues are in this particular dispute, the real issue is that Santa Monica’s manager, Joe Douglas, does not believe USATF is progressive enough in promoting the sport or its athletes. He is right, although it does not seem as if a boycott by his athletes will help achieve those goals, either.

*

National champions will qualify for the track and field competition in the July 23-Aug. 7 Goodwill Games at St. Petersburg, Russia, but Lewis, Burrell and Marsh also will be there because they received at-large invitations. Waiting for Lewis and Burrell in the 100 meters will be Great Britain’s Olympic and world champion, Linford Christie.

“I run in fear of losing,” Christie said in a recent interview with London’s Daily Mail. “I run because I like to hear ‘God Save the Queen’ instead of ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’ ”

*

After training for two months in Westwood with Coach John Smith, Marie-Jose Perec returned home to France to compete in a meet Friday, beating Torrence in the 200 meters. In a Paris news conference the previous day, she said one reason she likes living in the United States is the aggressive approach to shopping.

“Achetez, achetez jusqu’a ce que vous tombiez!” she said.

It doesn’t have the same rhyme to it in French, but she meant, “Shop, shop until you drop.”

*

Water polo player Dan Leyson, who will play for the United States in the June 23-26 Alamo Cup at Newport Beach, wrote about Otto Schindler’s list in a research paper for a class at USC four years before the Academy Award-winning movie was released.

Leyson learned of the list from his father, whose family was saved when hired by Schindler to work in one of his factories during the Holocaust.

*

As expected, the USOC approved plans during a board of directors meeting over the weekend in Boston to decrease the number of U.S. Olympic festivals between Summer Olympics from three to two.

The move is expected to save the USOC $4.2 million, but the real reason for doing it is to cut back on multisport competitions. In the 14-month period between last February and next March, the USOC and its sports governing bodies will have had to prepare athletes for the Winter Olympics, the U.S. Olympic Festival, the Goodwill Games and the Pan American Games.

The USOC’s executive committee will decide on Aug. 1 the exact years for the Festival. During the span between 1996 and 2000, the winter sports’ governing bodies prefer 1997 and 1999.

Notes

After losing $44 million on the first Goodwill Games in 1986 and $27 million on the second in 1990, Ted Turner estimated that he will lose only $10 million this summer. That is encouraging enough for him to proclaim last week during a news conference that nothing could prevent the 1998 Goodwill Games, scheduled for New York, from happening. . . . “Well, maybe a world war,” he added, “depending on whom was fighting whom.”. . . . Greg Louganis, who won four Olympic gold medals, will perform in an exhibition Monday at the Gay Games in New York.

A few days later, during the July 1-10 U.S. Olympic Festival in St. Louis, he will receive the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Robert J. Kane Award, which goes to a former Festival athlete who has given back to his sport. . . . Cities bidding to stage future Olympic festivals are Dallas, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle and Richmond, Va. Next summer’s Festival has been awarded to three Colorado cities--Denver, Boulder and Colorado Springs. Los Angeles and Anaheim made a joint bid for the U.S. Olympic Congress in 1997, ’98 or ‘99, but the winners were Orlando, Phoenix and Dallas. . . . As the USOC was leaving Boston, the International Skating Union was arriving for its annual meeting. The U.S. Figure Skating Assn. is attempting to push through a rule that would open the sport even further to professionals. The USFSA would like for all skaters to be eligible for ISU competitions as long as they do not participate in unsanctioned events. . . . The USFSA has announced its entrants for the Goodwill Games. Among Southern Californians on the list are Michelle Kwan and the pairs team of Stephanie Stiegler and Lance Travis. . . . All three train at Lake Arrowhead’s Ice Castle International Training Center.