Try an Off-Broadway Run First

It was like giving a kid his first pair of boxing gloves and telling him to step into the ring against Mike Tyson. Or a lifelong couch potato buying a backpack and a pair of hiking boots, then setting off to climb Mt. Everest.

The start-up Track & Field Assn., trying to rescue a sport that has dropped into the recesses of the American sporting mind, picked a heck of a weekend to start.

Its inaugural event, the TFA ProChampionships, debuted Sunday in Long Island, just outside a New York city that was hung over from what might have been the biggest sports bash in its history.

Something’s always going on in New York, but rarely had it seen a combination of events like Saturday’s: an interleague baseball game between the Yankees and the Mets, followed by Charismatic running for horse racing’s Triple Crown in the Belmont Stakes, followed by Game 3 of the NBA’s Eastern Conference finals between the New York Knicks and the Indiana Pacers at Madison Square Garden.

The media didn’t just treat the TFA meet like a stepchild, they treated it like a stepchild’s imaginary friend.

Throughout the week the tabloids were dominated by accounts of Patrick Ewing’s season-ending Achilles’ tendon injury, his demand to his teammates that they win a championship (and, by the way, a possibility of peace in Kosovo).

As if that weren’t enough, they produced 30-page special sections to preview the Yankee-Met series.

The only mention the Manhattan-based newspapers carried in advance of the track meet was a note that sprinter Michael Johnson would miss the event to be with his family after his grandmother passed away.

Just the type of “publicity” a sport starving for attention needs: Its most recognizable name would not be in attendance. (Not that Johnson has done much to carry the torch since his double-gold medal performance in the 1996 Olympics. The last time we watched him, he was pulling up lame in that match race against Donovan Bailey in 1997).

The TFA ProChampionships did feature a prominent name for the next Olympics, Marion Jones, who is expected to compete for five gold medals in Sydney. (She won the 100 meters in 11.33 seconds Sunday.) And it had Maurice Greene, the reigning men’s 100-meter king, although he skipped his signature event to get more practice at 200 meters, which he won in 20.37 seconds.

“I don’t think people can say the athletes aren’t committed to [making] this happen,” Jones said.

The athletes would love to see more U.S. events so they can stay home and build a higher local profile. In the current setup, most of their events are in Europe. Many of the competitors had flights to Europe Sunday night or this morning.

And the dominance of the European schedule is one reason the TFA was forced into this unfortunate date.

The TFA has itself to blame for the location. CEO Brian Vandenberg said the group wanted a major market, but it would have been better off in a city that would make it the headline attraction.

Almost 56,000 people went to Yankee Stadium on Saturday, more than 85,000 showed up at Belmont and almost 20,000 packed the Garden.

The TFA ProChampionships drew 3,184 to the Mitchel Athletic Complex.

“We would like to have some more [fans], but it’s OK,” said Tisha Waller, who won the women’s high jump at 6 feet 5 inches. “You have to give everything time. I think it’s a good start.”

It was a breezy day on Long Island, with the wind blowing into the runners’ faces for the sprints and in the homestretch of the distance races. That made for some slow times, but the races were competitive, including a 3,000-meter run in which the winner, Paul Bitok, finished only two-tenths of a second ahead of third-place runner Adam Goucher.

“The competition is phenomenal, and that’s my first priority,” Vandenberg said.

Vandenberg and his group of investors know they need to be patient. They estimate they will lose up to $10 million in the first four years of this organization, which they hope to expand to eight events next year.

“I just believe so much,” Vandenberg said. “This sport is the pinnacle of sports.”

If there is a group of athletes that deserves to be in the public eye, it’s the track and field population. They are the smartest, most enjoyable group in the sports world.

And they’re very accommodating to fans and the media.

Runners grant interviews without waiting to catch their breath after a race.

When a fan asked Greene to autograph his T-shirt, Greene said he couldn’t do it because the shirt featured a logo of a rival to his athletic-wear sponsor. It was a refrain heard all too often in sports these days. Greene’s next sentence, however, was not.

“I’ll do it anyway,” he said. Then he searched his backpack for a better pen than the cheap ballpoint the fan had with him.

It was also fun to see the athletes so excited about a $100,000 bonus. A hundred grand is chump change in pro sports these days; a playoff share for NBA players.

It sparked great interest in the women’s 100 hurdles, which was randomly selected from among six events to receive the special jackpot. Melissa Morrison won it, in a time of 12.98 seconds. When asked what she planned to do with the money, she said she would invest some, use some to pay off her credit card and give some to her mom.

“She deserves it,” Morrison said.

With attitudes like that, track and field deserves a bonus too.

The TFA ProChampionships had live television coverage on ESPN, which is a start.

Next time, don’t try to compete against the biggest sports weekend ever in America’s biggest city.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com