Track and Field Looks for a Savior

You ask if the sport of track and field can be saved [Aug. 20]. My answer is yes, if the media will only do a decent job of covering the sport as they did in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

Your own special report illustrates my point. You devoted virtually two entire pages to a downer article, more space than you have given track during this entire season.

We have two of the finest track programs in the U.S. right here in Los Angeles, at USC and UCLA, and yet it takes a magnifying glass to find any track results in the Los Angeles Times, and even then they are buried on one of the last pages of the sports section.

As for TV coverage, forget it. TV hasn’t a clue as to how a meet should be covered. Only the highlights of the field events are shown, if they are shown at all. And when it comes to the races, much more time is spent on interviews and sidebars than the actual competition.

You guys in the media want to know why track and field is dying? Just look in the mirror.

LLOYD PEYTON

Silver Lake

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No. the sport cannot be saved when the American Public/Joe Six-Pack mentality continues to exist. They have been brainwashed for too long with the “our gang can beat your gang” fan mentality of the so-called glamour sports of football, basketball and baseball, while losing all appreciation of what athletic excellence is and what it takes to be a world-class athlete.

GEORGE F. SCOTT

Los Angeles

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I read and agree with your recent articles on the decline of interest in track and field in this country. The memories of the Coliseum, Compton, Fresno, Modesto, Mt. SAC and Penn Relays, not to speak of the Millrose Games, are fading for those of us who were mesmerized by the sport.

You touched on the problems affecting track and field popularity in this country: the NCAA and collegiate greed that led to the reduction of track and field scholarships in Division I schools.

Let me cite a more basic cause, using Los Angeles as a model. The real damage was done at the high school level, where both boys and girls were routinely capable of astounding performances on any given Friday. The kids from Jefferson and Jordan, Belmont and University, Bell, Poly and Washington Highs inspired headline stories in the city’s five daily newspapers at the time.

All-City finals meets at the Coliseum used to draw 35,000, sometimes 40,000. That kind of enthusiasm was infectious. But budget constraints on Los Angeles city schools finally gutted track and field along with other elective programs.

The disappearance of a constituency at that level inevitably spilled over into collegiate ranks. Coaches like Jim Bush of UCLA and later USC became forgotten men.

It is truly sad to watch some of our finest young athletes, superbly conditioned men and women, working out almost in lonely isolation at USC and UCLA each spring, knowing that only a relatively small group of aficionados is paying any attention to them and they will have to compete abroad to get any attention.

MURRAY FROMSON

Professor of Journalism, USC