OLYMPIC FESTIVAL : Sprinter Brown, 33, Is Still Searching for Gold

Alice Brown doesn’t have to explain why she is here. But she does.

Brown’s running credentials are impeccable, even if they haven’t brought her fame outside the track and field community.

At the Olympic Games, she won gold medals in both 1984 and 1988 as part of the 400-meter relay team. She also won a silver medal in the 100 meters in 1984.

But that was 10 years ago, the recent gold was six, and people today have the audacity to ask what she is doing at the Olympic Festival.

Some athletes would roll their eyes at such a question.

Brown smiles.

Hey, she owns these games. She has won seven Festival gold medals over the years. That’s the most of any track and field athlete.

In an event that often featured marquee names such as Florence Griffith-Joyner, Evelyn Ashford and Gail Devers, Brown won her share and finished second and third a host of other times.

Fast company, but not bad company.

And then she gets the question.

“That’s something I evaluate myself,” Brown says pleasantly. “I come back to the Festival for several reasons. The simulation of the Olympic Games, organization and good competition.

“The competition now is also a lot better than it used to be.”

With that statement, Brown indicates that she is looking to the future. The 33-year-old Hacienda Heights resident is hoping to get to Atlanta in 1996.

But things have not gone well for her in the last year. She left her track club to practice independently, then suffered a stress fracture in a foot and failed to get past the first round in the national meet.

She remains undaunted.

“I feel I should be getting back to times where I should be running, 11.2 or 11.3 (in the 100),” Brown said. “It was the first time I’ve been injured in 20 years. So far, I’ve only had four or five races, so I need to get back in a competitive mode and have some more races under my belt.”

She should get a good gauge of her recovery tonight. She will be the oldest runner in the event, 16 years older than the youngest, Aspen Burkett. But she makes no apologies for being 33.

“I think over the last four to five years, athletes have started to realize that they can (compete) into their mid-30s,” Brown said. “A lot has to do with the fact that you have to have the desire to compete. I think a lot of athletes, before, didn’t have the desire or weren’t sound enough financially to compete into their mid-30s. But now that we are able to, it’s going to work out well for our athletes.”

Financial viability is still a problem for Brown, who is able to continue in part because of the U.S. Olympic Committee’s job program.

A graduate of Cal State Northridge, Brown wants to organize a track and field athletes’ union.

“I do think the sport is dying,” she said. “There used to be meets in Southern California, but now there’s just Mt. SAC and, indoors, the Sunkist Invitational.

“People just don’t know about track and field. They wait until the Olympic Games, and that’s all they know. If we had something that could help promote us--I don’t want to say a rivalry, but that’s what brings the crowds in--it would help.

“If you are capable of making the final race, you should have appearance money. Then if you finish in the top three, you deserve the prize money. There are so many athletes who get left by the wayside, even though they are capable of (competing). If you have a house and kid and a car payment and insurance, there’s no way you can do it, even if you want to.”