The Fame Games : Six Months Ago Today, the Olympics Ended, but Spotlight Remains on Five Athletes, While Five Others Faded

Six months ago, Aug. 4, 1996, the light went out in Georgia. That was the night they shut down the Atlanta Olympics, dousing the caldron that carried the Olympic flame through 17 days of Michael Johnson sprints and MARTA gridlock, Kerri Strug and Coca-Cola, gold medal celebrations and Richard Jewell interrogations.

Since then, lives have changed, careers have turned and, in some instances, claims to fame have faded.

Take, for example, the Olympic caldron.

Beloved by Atlantans at the time--who wouldn’t want a giant iron French fryer looking down on his or her fair city for eternity?--the caldron has become an object of controversy.

The Atlanta Braves, who will make Olympic Stadium their home this baseball season, want to tear down the caldron.

The Atlanta-Fulton County Recreation Authority, which owns the land where the caldron stands, want to keep it where it is, but doesn’t want to pay for upkeep.

A local land developer has offered to intercede, provided he is allowed to move the caldron and use it as a bald eagle sanctuary at a mountain park.

The pressing civic question has prompted the formation of a Keep The Caldron group, which hopes to raise $250,000 for annual maintenance and insurance. Coca-Cola could write a check and be done with it, but hasn’t, presumably deciding that money could be better spent on polar bear commercials.

Is there anybody left to turn to?

McDonald’s, maybe?

The caldron problem is merely another symptom of post-Olympic depression, a condition that can nag at a host city for months, even years. (Has Montreal ever recovered?) It happens to athletes too, once the adrenaline rush on the victory stand dissipates.

Heroes today, gone and forgotten tomorrow.

How has the class of ’96 weathered the reintroduction into the real world?

Here is how 10 prominent figures from the Atlanta Games are faring today, six months removed from the closing ceremony--five who have maintained a high public profile and five who, for reasons within or beyond their control, have retreated from the limelight.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? WE KNOW, WE KNOW . . .

MICHAEL JOHNSON

As befits the first man to win both the 200- and 400-meter sprints in the same Olympics, Johnson has been able to keep the wheels of his publicity machine going.

He recently signed a six-year extension to his Nike endorsement contract worth at least $12 million. He agreed to race Canada’s 100-meter champion Donovan Bailey in a 150-meter world’s-fastest-human duel meet later this year, and he released “Slaying the Dragon,” a glossy, photo-laden book lauding his exploits and passing down wisdom to the sprinters of the 21st century.

On the downside, in the race to become Sports Illustrated’s sportsman of the year, Johnson failed at slaying Tiger Woods, which annoyed Johnson no end.

“Tiger Woods signed the contract this year . . . for $60 million--that got him a lot of press,” Johnson said in December, when the award was announced. “And unfortunately, in this society, we a lot of times equate sports greatness with how much money you make. . . .

“Sports Illustrated gives a lot more coverage to golf than track and field.”

In an attempt to rectify the situation, Johnson said he hopes to “raise our sport to the next level, so when I have a season like I did this past year, I can get to be Sports Illustrated’s sportsman of the year.”

Racing Bailey, at a gimmicky split-the-difference 150 meters, is part of that crusade. Track purists have bristled at the concept, but the June 1 runoff in Toronto has garnered headlines and spawned track conversation on sports-talk radio, and when has that happened in a non-Olympic year?

To Johnson’s way of thinking, that constitutes a start.

KERRI STRUG

Six months after vaulting into the arms of Bela Karolyi, Strug is relishing her lot as a “normal” college student taking 12 units at UCLA--give or take her appearances on “Saturday Night Live,” “Beverly Hills 90210,” “The Tonight Show,” “The Rosie O’Donnell Show” and the Fiesta Bowl parade, which she served as grand marshal.

“I think it’s a good balance,” Strug says. “I’m going to class all day, which is something new for me, and meeting a lot of people, which is fun. And my weekends are great. I get to do really exciting things most college students don’t have the chance to do.”

Strug spent her last two weekends at the Super Bowl in New Orleans and the opening ceremonies of the Canadian Special Olympics in Toronto. This weekend, she attends the ESPY Awards. Next weekend, the sports marketers’ “Super Show” in Atlanta.

Weekdays, she’s at UCLA, where she serves as a volunteer coach for the women’s gymnastics team, which she describes as “kinda neat.”

“When the girls want to have a night on the town, I act as kind a mediator between them and the coach,” she says. “I tell the coach the next day, ‘You know, I think the girls are a little tired. It’s probably best if you took it easy on them today. They promise to work hard the next couple of days.’ ”

And she has pledged a sorority, which has been great, she says.

“UCLA is so big, I guess I wanted to find a group of people where I could fit in,” Strug says. “I pledged a week ago. I haven’t done too many social things, so I’m hoping this helps me out.”

Strug no longer travels with the World Gold gymnastics tour, which is on hiatus after a first leg marred by small crowds and cancellations. Just as well, she figures; her still-sore ankle ligaments can use the time off.

“It’s gotten better, but it’s taken a long, long time,” Strug says. “Much longer than I expected.”

Strug visited Karolyi during the holidays and Karolyi reports, “Kerri was the happiest I have seen her. She is picking up with her idea of college and education, doing things she always wanted to do but couldn’t. I’m very happy for her.”

AMY VAN DYKEN

The price of fame rudely smacked Van Dyken in her milk-mustached face earlier this month when the four-time swimming gold medalist canceled a Jan. 25 appearance at the University of Colorado’s Winterfest Ball to compete in a swim meet in Indianapolis instead.

“We wonder if this ‘Woman Athlete of the Year’ should have milk on her face in the new advertising campaigns or, may we suggest, EGG ON HER FACE??” read a university news release, which noted that 2,500 invitations to the event “had been mailed with Amy’s picture.”

Through a representative, Van Dyken tried to explain that she had planned to resume her swimming career no earlier than March, but changed her mind in December when an Indianapolis meet offered her the chance to swim competitively for the first time with her younger sister Katie.

Van Dyken apologized and offered to help the university raise funds through a “Lunch With Amy Van Dyken” raffle, but appeasement was minimal. The university news release concluded: “We will still be honoring the four lung transplant patients who received medals in the 1996 Transplant Games in Utah. . . . They are and will always be the true heroes!”

Van Dyken is 23, middle-aged for a sprint swimmer, but says she plans to continue swimming because, with the retirement of Janet Evans and Summer Sanders, the sport has a public-relations void she feels responsible to fill.

Besides that, she’s getting restless. As Van Dyken told the Indianapolis Star last month, “When I stopped competing . . . I started venting in other areas. I’d look at my husband and I’d be like, ‘I can make a pancake bigger and faster than you.’ You feel like, ‘Amy, you need to get back in the pool.’ ”

DOMINIQUE DAWES

For Dawes, the first African American female gymnast to win an individual Olympic gymnastic medal--bronze, floor exercise--the fruits of victory included a bit part in the Broadway production of “Grease” and 15 seconds of fame in a music video by The Artist Formerly Known As Prince.

In “Grease,” Dawes played the role of Patty Simcox, the bouncing, high-kicking high school cheerleader, during a break from her gymnastics touring schedule in December. It was a small part, involving more dancing than elocution, but is was a part on Broadway--not a bad place for an aspiring actress to launch a career.

As she walked into the theater for rehearsal, Dawes remembers being “totally in awe” of the building and the cast. But one day, she brought in her U.S. team gold medal and the cast surrounded her with exclamations of “Oh my God, can I touch it?”

In November, Dawes became an MTV performer, if only for a few moments, because, as she tells it: “I’ve always been a fan of The Artist Formerly Known As Prince . . . and he contacted my agent down in D.C., David Carradine, to set up things to do a music video in ’97. And I guess he got this song that he thought I would fit better for, so he called me up and a month later I was doing it.”

Dawes appears as a background dancer in a remake version of the old Motown standard “Betcha By Golly Wow!”--but not for very long.

“Mmmm, 15 seconds,” she estimates. “But it was worth it. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

And how did Dawes and The Artist hit it off?

“I think he was a fan of mine,” she says, “because when I saw him, he had shaved some of his hair off and put glitter there, and he was, like, ‘What do you think?’ And I’m, like, ‘Yeah, I really like your glitter.’ And he goes, ‘I got it from you.’

“And that was cool, you know, that an entertainer, someone as famous as he is, would look to me and pick up on some little detail that I used to get the crowd’s attention. And it got his attention too.”

AMANDA BEARD

Still very much the 15-year-old swimmer from Irvine--gold medal and breakfast with Dennis Rodman notwithstanding--Beard lists among her post-Atlanta highlights meeting Luke Perry and Geena Davis’ husband, who, according to Amanda, were both “really cool.”

In January, Beard underwent wrist surgery to remove a cyst and reports, “I almost passed out when they put the IV in. I had a big bruise. My hands were bruised--they couldn’t find the vein. . . . I missed school for a week. I was taking pain pills and I couldn’t eat and my stomach was going nuts.”

When she returned to classes at Irvine High, she couldn’t grip a pencil.

“We were doing a video work sheet in biology and . . . we had a sub and I said, ‘I’m not allowed to write.’ She said, ‘Write with your left hand!’ I get too frustrated and it’s all sloppy. If you can’t read this, it’s not my fault.”

And what did she and Rodman, her basketball hero discuss over breakfast?

Makeup tips and favorite dress shops?

Hardly.

“He was very quiet and shy,” Beard says. “I thought he’d be more outgoing, like he is on TV. But that’s his act. Not really his act, but he gets attention.

“In the NBA, he really wouldn’t be noticed that much for his rebounds, unless he did something crazy like that. Michael [Jordan] is going to get the attention and [Rodman] wouldn’t get anything. Because he does that, he gets more attention and publicity.”

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? NOW THAT YOU ASK . . .

MICHELLE SMITH

The Michelle Smith story is heavy on high concept--unknown Irish lass outswims Janet Evans in her own backyard and wins three Olympic gold medals amid scandalous whispers of performance-enhancing drugs--but it never made the big screen. Once, there were rumors of Nicole Kidman in the starring role, but only rumors. There remain no script, no cast, no big post-Olympic cash-in.

One reason: Smith wasn’t enamored of holding her private life up to public scrutiny.

Another: The steroid rumors that continue to hound her.

She was, in the words of one swimming commentator, going to be “a millionaire by Christmas,” but it hasn’t happened. Instead, she has spent most of the last six months defending herself against innuendo.

In December, Smith passed two drug tests and declared, “This proves I am clean.” In January, she said she was planning to sue for libel.

“I’m fed up with all the insinuations and accusations that have come my way,” she recently told a London tabloid, the Mirror. “The accusations have definitely affected me commercially. I still haven’t got a major sponsor, and I believe these allegations are partly responsible.

“It may be because I haven’t taken action. Now that has changed. I’ve handed all the offending articles to my solicitors.”

Smith claims she was tested four times in Atlanta and twice in Holland in December.

“All those tests were clear and that vindicates me,” she said after a race in the Caribbean in late December. “Those small minds will never belittle what I have achieved or taint the taste of victory from Atlanta.”

DAVID REID

Boxing promoter Dan Goossen ticks off the names of former Olympic gold medalists who have gone on to dominate the professional sport: Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Pernell Whitaker.

Next in line, he hopes, is his new client, Reid, who won the United States’ only 1996 gold medal in boxing with a dramatic third-round knockout, delivered while Reid was trailing on points, 15-5.

Goossen hopes, and he waits and waits, because Reid hasn’t had another fight since signing with Goossen’s America presents after the Olympics for “a seven-figure bonus.”

An eye injury during the Olympic trials prompted the delay.

“David was hit in the eyelid and the eyelid kept lowering itself,” Goossen says. “The injury itself sounds like one of the seven dwarfs--’droopy eyelid.’ ”

The condition eventually required corrective surgery, performed in two phases, the second of which was completed Jan. 17.

Reid is scheduled to make his pro debut March 21, on HBO, but no opponent has been named.

That means he will have gone nearly eight months between bouts. With more than $1 million committed to the venture, why wasn’t the eye surgery performed sooner?

“The first doctor . . . recommended rest instead of surgery,” Goossen says. “After six weeks, we didn’t see any improvement, so that’s when we decided to look at the surgery.

“We could have waited six months. The eye might have looked a little better, and then David goes into the ring and gets popped on the eye and we’re right back where we started. . . . I think it would have been more frustrating capitalizing right away and then having to stall the momentum because he would have fought once and then had to have the surgery.”

KURT ANGLE

Along with Strug’s wincing one-foot hop on the vault landing pad, Angle’s gold-medal moment in freestyle wrestling was the All-American portrait of the Atlanta Games.

After winning a controversial decision over Abbas Jadidi of Iran at 220 pounds, Angle fell to his knees, clasped his hands in prayer and wept in memory of 1984 Olympic champion Dave Schultz, slain earlier in the year, allegedly by former wrestling benefactor John DuPont.

The image seemed indelible at the time. But in the American public consciousness, amateur wrestling isn’t swimming, gymnastics or even beach volleyball. Angle lost the spotlight almost as soon as he stepped off the mat, although, in recent weeks, he has worked to reclaim at least a sliver.

In December, Angle filmed a children’s video, plainly titled “The Kurt Angle Self-Esteem and Exercise Video for Kids.” He has also had meetings with movie production companies in Hollywood, and is negotiating endorsement deals with three companies in Pittsburgh, his hometown.

A delayed reaction to a once-in-a-lifetime moment, Angle believes, is better than none at all.

GARY HALL JR.

Hall has long portrayed himself as an Olympic swimming champion for the slacker set, and true to form, he has retrenched since winning gold medals in the freestyle and medley relays.

Hall’s highlights of the last six months:

--While Russian rival Alexander Popov was recuperating in Moscow from stab wounds he suffered in an argument with street watermelon vendors in September, Hall mailed him, as a spirit-lifting practical joke, a Kachina doll holding a watermelon in one hand and a knife in the other.

“I just want to keep him in stitches,” Hall quipped at the time.

--Met the lead singers of two of his favorite bands, Gibby Hanes of BH Surfers and Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots. Actually, he bumped into Hanes at LAX.

“No one knew who he was; no one but me,” Hall proudly reports.

--Answered a U.S. Swimming questionnaire about 1997 plans thusly: “There’s going to be a National Gary Hall Day where everyone has to wear lederhosen filled with pudding and dance Irish jigs.”

The U.S. Swimming web site posts the following update on Hall: “Gary has not retired. He will not compete in the U.S. Open or Spring Nationals.”

IZZY

The bug-eyed blue ringworm that served as official mascot for the 1996 Olympics was also a metaphor for the Atlanta Games: He was a bad idea from the start, no one much cared for him, but Atlanta pressed on with him regardless, ignoring all advice and refusing to adapt when problems predictably developed.

Where-izzy today?

Good question. Izzy souvenirs were among the slowest sellers in recent history, with store shelves in Atlanta still stocked with Izzyware long after the Games were over.

But the real Izzy? He was last spotted at Sea World, banished, sadly, to a life of shaking children’s hands/scaring toddlers witless outside the Shamu exhibit.

It isn’t much, but, hey, it’s a gig.

Times staff writer Lisa Dillman contributed to this story.