Somehow, Ted Turner Still Bringing Goodwill to World

Arriving in Port of Spain a day early for a soccer game in 1990, a colleague and I were handed off by the president of Trinidad & Tobago’s soccer federation to an associate who went by the name of Bones.

Bones, a most hospitable and thirsty man, gave us a tour of the city, including several bars.

Last call came for us at around 2 a.m., after which we assumed we would be driven to our hotel. Instead, Bones wanted us to meet friends of his at their home, insisting, correctly, they would be up watching television.

Specifically, they were watching CNN.

“We, on this tiny Caribbean island, used to live in isolation,” one said. “It would take us days to learn the details of a big event, like the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now, we watch at the same time you do in Los Angeles. CNN has enabled us to join the rest of the world. This Ted Turner, he is the greatest man of our time, no?”

No. But he is on the short list.

Not everyone will agree. It is decidedly more fun to toss rotten vegetables at Turner because of his overacting in the role of Don Quixote on the world stage. That, however, places more emphasis on style than substance.

He would be the first to admit he doesn’t have time or money to bring down all the windmills at which he tilts--world peace, underprivileged children and Rupert Murdoch are priorities--but there is no shortage of brass.

Anyone who donates $1 billion to the United Nations, hunts ducks with Fidel Castro, marries Jane Fonda and still considers himself a member in good stead of the Republican Party is not easily deterred.

It is because of his persistence, and his alone, that the Goodwill Games still exist.

Further defying the odds, not to mention logic, he placed the fourth version of his Games in New York, which is hardly known for good will. It would be like moving the Sun Bowl to Seattle.

New Yorkers, though, are not hostile toward the Games. It’s worse for Turner. They are ambivalent.

Through Saturday, only half of the 600,000 tickets for competition that begins today and continues through Aug. 2 had been sold.

In a recent Mediaweek article about the Goodwill Games, one sports marketer said, “I bet if you went out on the street and asked about 10 New Yorkers what they are, eight wouldn’t know.”

Turner would tell them that they are a “small-scale Olympics,” involving 1,500 athletes from 60 countries in 15 sports. including track and field, swimming, basketball, boxing and figure skating.

Cynics would suggest that their primary purpose is to provide programming for 16 nights in the dead of summer for the Time Warner/ Turner-owned TBS and HBO, although they also were able to sell rights to selected weekend events to CBS.

But no matter how the Goodwill Games are defined, there is no question Turner believes in them as deeply as Pierre de Coubertin did in the Olympic Games, which also attracted skepticism when they were revived in 1896.

According to Newsday, Turner recently said before one staff meeting that his “two proudest accomplishments were CNN and the Goodwill Games.” The title of his new autobiography is, “Riding a White Horse/Ted Turner’s Goodwill Games & Other Crusades.”

Turner started the Goodwill Games in 1986 as a peace mission, believing that U.S. and Soviet-led boycotts of the 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics signaled a particularly perilous time in relations between the two superpowers and that they couldn’t begin to engage each other in meaningful endeavors if they wouldn’t even agree to allow their athletes to meet.

During an impassioned news conference at the initial Games in Moscow, Turner spoke about the horror of a nuclear holocaust, the value of all life on the planet and closed with the provocative “and what about the elephants?”

He was less cryptic in a conversation with Mikhail Gorbachev, whom, according to Turner’s autobiography, he told, “Look: I have kids. You have kids. What’s their future going to be like?”

With the thaw of the Cold War, the question today might be whether the Games are still relevant.

Time Warner, which has merged with Turner since the 1994 Games in St. Petersburg, Russia, and was believed to be less enthralled with them than their founder, has decided they are.

Despite losses of $109 million from the first three versions and a projected deficit of between $10 million and $20 million from this one, Turner announced Saturday that the Games will go on--in 2001 in Brisbane, Australia.

“Whenever you have any kind of multinational gathering for fun and sport, that’s a good thing, and there’s not very much of that going on in the world today,” he told USA Today last week.

The only war here appears to be between Nassau County on Long Island and Manhattan. They are sharing the events but are seeking to avoid sharing either credit or blame.

So far, it’s advantage Manhattan.

In an unofficial opening celebration Friday night in Nassau County, featured artists were Vito Picone and the Elegants, the Dedications, the Chiffons and Shirley Alston Reeves. In the official festivities Saturday night in Battery Park, Manhattan countered with Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Hootie and the Blowfish, CeCe and BeBe Winans and Brandy.

Otherwise, the battles will be athletic, the major ones pitting the United States vs. Iran in wrestling, the U.S. and Chinese women swimmers and, in track, three of the world’s fastest men, Donovan Bailey of Canada, Maurice Greene of the United States and Ato Boldon of Trinidad. Bones and friends will be watching in Port of Spain.

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Who to Watch in the Goodwill Games

TODAY

Marion Jones, track’s world champion in the 100 and 200, is a clear favorite in the 100. (Ditto for Monday’s 200.)

Despite the presence of two of the United States’ Magnificent Seven, Dominique Moceanu and Dominique Dawes, Russian world champion Svetlana Khorkina is the class of the field in the women’s gymnastics all-around competition.

Bill May of the Santa Clara Aquamaids becomes the first man to compete in an international synchronized swimming competition, teaming with Kristina Lum in a duet to “Bolero.”

MONDAY

Gymnast Ivan Ivankov of Belarus, two-time all-around world champion, tries to add another title in the all-around competition.

TUESDAY

Three of track’s four fastest sprinters, Canada’s Donovan Bailey, the United States’ Maurice Greene and Trinidad’s Ato Boldon, meet in the 100.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee begins her final heptathlon.

Injuries limit Michael Johnson to one race, the 400.

WEDNESDAY

Chinese women swimmers, often suspected of drug use, face their most vocal accusers in a dual meet with the United States.

FRIDAY

With no Dream Teamers, the U.S. men’s basketball team of college all-stars is no lock to advance to the championship game.

SATURDAY

Iranian wrestlers, perhaps inspired by their soccer compatriots, meet the United States in a dual meet.

Mia Hamm and Kristine Lilly lead the U.S. women soccer team in asemifinal against China. (A possible match against world champion Norway looms in the July 27 final.)

JULY 29

Boxing begins with the best amateurs from Cuba, Russia and the United States.

JULY 30

With Tara Lipinski skating professionally, Michelle Kwan is in a league of her own in the women’s short program.

AUG. 2

Russian swimmer Alexander Popov, who recovered from a stab wound to win the 100 and finish second in the 50 at last year’s world championships, has a chance to avenge his loss with a rematch in the 50 against American Bill Pilczuk.