Track and Field Gets Advice From Booth

Dwight Stones was a high jumper during his competitive days in track and field, but put him behind a microphone and he’s a marathoner, a long-distance man who never fatigues--or seems to even need to pause for breath.

“Meet directors used to love me,” says Stones, in Seville, Spain, this week to augment NBC’s and TBS’ coverage of the IAAF World Championships. “They knew they could just sit me down with a newspaper writer, wind me up and they’d get a column out of me.”

If high jumping is a science, talking is an art form, Stones will tell you--and, rest assured, he most certainly will tell you.

“I figured it out real early, like when I was 19 or 20 years old,” he says. “I said, ‘Hey, this is no different than going to the movies or a play or a concert. This is entertainment.’

“If I don’t provide entertainment, it doesn’t matter how damned high I jump. I need to be able to jump not so high, get beat and still get more headlines than the guy who beat me. That’s the ultimate, in any sport--to get more press than the guys who won. And I managed to do that.”

Unfortunately, his is a lesson lost on far too many contemporary American track athletes, who have turned interview-dodging into a featured event--doing much, Stones believes, to cripple the sport’s popularity in this country.

“There certainly is a problem with accessibility, there’s no question,” Stones says. “Michael Johnson is not a bad interview, once you get him to sit down. But Michael has got a bit of a chip on his shoulder sometimes.

“He realizes he sort of inherited the mantle of Carl Lewis, but because of a number of things somewhat out of his control--with his injury issues--and his maybe not being as prepared as he thought he was for the onslaught and upsetting of his personal life after what he did [at the Atlanta Olympics], maybe he’s not the most accessible, maybe he’s not the most cooperative. Track and field [athletes] could take an awful lot of lessons from the NBA when it comes to self-promotion.”

Stones says he occasionally sits down American track athletes to “explain to them, ‘If you think running fast, jumping high and throwing far is all you need to do to become famous and make a lot of money, you are confused.

“ ‘There’s a lot of people out there running fast, jumping high and throwing far and no one knows who they are. They aren’t cooperative. They don’t make themselves available. They think they should be able to do their talking through their legs. But it isn’t enough.’

“I’m getting through a little bit. . . . But it’s a long, long slow process.”

ISSUING A CHALLENGE

Stones admits some athletes bristle at his opinionated, wall-of-sound broadcasting style.

“I tell them, ‘Guys, maybe you don’t like what I say about you sometimes, but my job is to be Dwight Stones,’ ” he says. “ ‘That’s why I was hired and why I’ve been doing this for 23 years. [The networks] expect me to be outspoken, to say the things other people are afraid to say. And I’m going to tell it how I think it is.’

“I also say to them, ‘If I’m wrong, here’s my phone number, here’s my e-mail address--tell me I’m wrong. Communicate with me. The more recent the information I get about you, the better I can promote you.’ ”

America’s current apathy toward track and field troubles Stones.

“At this point,” he says, “the sport is so low that we have to look up to look down.”

He attributes much of the blame to track and field becoming “the de facto whipping boy for drugs in sports” in the wake of Ben Johnson’s positive test for steroids at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

“I don’t understand why track and field takes the hit on the drug issue the way it does,” he says. “I blame, to some degree, how the media took off on the Ben Johnson thing.

“If the Olympic Games in Seoul had not been such a mix of news and sports coverage. . . . When Bryant Gumbel was hired to host it, it took on a decidedly news slant that it might not have if someone not from news had hosted. When Gumbel got that job, it was like the news department said, ‘OK, this is half our Olympics now.’ And they just went way overboard on Ben Johnson. And it seems as though it has never stopped.”

Making note of how other professional sports escape such vigilant drug scrutiny, Stones offers up a none-too-modest proposal:

“Our sport can’t get any less popular than it already is, so here’s my take on it: The best defense is a good offense. I would send a letter to every sports organization in the country--the NFL, NBA, ATP, NFL, Major League Baseball, everybody--daring them, challenging them to go on our drug protocol, where it’s random, out-of-competition drug-testing and they can knock on your door and hand you a bottle and watch you do it. You will not get a response. They will not do it.

“After three letters, one each month, hold a press conference to announce that we have for three months . . . been challenging the following entities to go on our drug program. No one has returned our calls. No one has written us a fax. So now we are throwing down the gauntlet: Either go on our program or shut up.”

Such a tactic, Stones says, “would cost a little money, but, I tell you, it would get some space in the sports page.”

NO WAIVER DEAL FOR COSTAS

Wednesday night at Seattle’s Safeco Field, pinch-hitting in the broadcast booth for ESPN . . . NBC’s Bob Costas?

Yes, that was Costas working the Tiger-Mariner telecast for ESPN alongside analyst Joe Morgan.

No, Costas hasn’t jumped ship.

“We just had some extra games and needed an additional play-by-play announcer,” ESPN spokesman Rob Tobias said. “He was available and he expressed some interest in doing some games for us.”

Two games, to be precise. Costas will also fill in on ESPN’s featured telecast Sept. 21, matchup still to be determined. But it is strictly a temporary gig.

“He’s not replacing anyone,” Tobias said. “We have a set crew of baseball announcers.”

What Los Angeles Is Watching

A sampling of L.A. Nielsen ratings for Aug. 21-22, including sports on cable networks: *--*

SATURDAY Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Baseball: Dodgers at Philadelphia 5 3.5 8 Golf: Sprint International 2 2.9 8 Football: Arena Bowl, Orlando-Albany 7 2.3 7 Baseball: San Diego at Atlanta 11 2.0 6 Basketball: WNBA, New York at Cleveland 4 1.3 3 Golf: U.S. Amateur Championship 4 1.1 3

*--*

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Cable Network Rating Share Football: NFL, Dallas at New York ESPN 2.5 6 Football: NFL, Miami at San Diego FSW2 1.6 3 Auto racing: NASCAR Winston Cup Happy Hour ESPN 0.6 2 Baseball: Detroit at Angels FSW 0.6 1 Auto racing: NASCAR Busch Grand National 200 ESPN 0.5 2 Auto racing: CART Target Grand Prix ESPN2 0.4 1 Baseball: Pony League World Series FSW 0.4 1 Tennis: ATP Legg Mason Classic FSW 0.4 1 Baseball: Colorado at Chicago Cubs WGN 0.3 1 Baseball: Chicago White Sox at Baltimore WGN 0.2 1 Golf: Senior BankBoston Classic ESPN 0.2 1 Horse racing: Alabama Stakes ESPN 0.2 1 SUNDAY Track and field: IAAF World Championships 4 4.5 15 Baseball: Dodgers at Philadelphia 5 3.6 10 Golf: Sprint International 2 3.0 8 Tennis: ATP RCA Championships 4 2.9 8 Golf: U.S. Amateur Championship 4 2.4 6 Auto racing: CART Grand Prix of Chicago 7 1.9 5 Auto racing: NASCAR Winston Cup Pepsi 400 ESPN 1.7 5 Horse racing: Ballerina Stakes ESPN 1.2 3 Baseball: Little League World Series ESPN2 1.2 3 Baseball: Cleveland at Seattle ESPN 1.1 2 Tennis: ATP Legg Mason Classic FSW 0.5 1 Motorcycle racing: AMA Loudon Grand Prix TNN 0.4 1 Golf: Senior BankBoston Classic ESPN 0.4 1

*--*

WEEKDAY RATINGS: Monday, Pro football, Denver at Green Bay, Ch. 7, 8.8/17.

Note: Each rating point represents 51,350 L.A. households. Cable ratings reflect the entire market, even though cable is in only 63% of L.A. households.