O’Brien’s NFL Challenge Has Chance to Be Quite a Circus

Dan O’Brien has an immodest proposal he believes can help U.S. track and field shake loose a few average American sports fans from their pigskin-and-ESPN- induced stupor.

“I’m ready to challenge the NFL,� the 1996 Olympic decathlon champion declares.

“I want to challenge anybody who wants to compete against me in the decathlon. I’d love to race some of these guys who think they’re sprinters. It’d be hard for me to race real track and field guys like Michael Bates and James Trapp, but I’d love to race 100 meters against Rocket [Ismail] and Deion Sanders and Darrell Green, guys like that.�

And then run the high hurdles against Herman Moore or Tyrone Wheatley.

And then long-jump against Eric Metcalf.

“They could pick their own team and I’ll compete against them in all 10 events,� O’Brien says. “And then we’ll see who the world’s greatest athlete is.�

Of all the half-baked, half-cocked promotional schemes to ever come down the pike . . .

Yes, yes.

And the more of them U.S. track and field can dream up, at this sorry stage in its existence, the better, according to O’Brien.

“Track and field could be a great sport in this country,� O’Brien says. “I still think USA Track and Field is missing the boat and could take a lesson from the WNBA. They took three women--Rebecca Lobo, Sheryl Swoopes and Lisa Leslie--and pumped them up and promoed them. I mean, every little girl in America wanted to be one of these women.

“I think that’s what USA Track and Field needs to do. Take your best athletes, showcase them and get a million kids in the world wanting to be Michael Johnson. And then that’s when you’ve got a good start.�

O’Brien believes Johnson had the right idea when he agreed to last June’s 150-meter match race in Toronto against Donovan Bailey, playing along with the shameless world’s-fastest-human hype.

“I think what he did in Toronto was brave, probably one of the bravest things I’ve seen,� O’Brien says. “He didn’t have to race. Neither did Donovan. . . .

“It was good for track. Absolutely. Even though Michael put it on the line and he came out the loser, it was awesome. Because that’s how track and field got started in the United States. Match races. And for too many years, the best guys have been ducking each other.

“I remember Carl Lewis--he wouldn’t race guys and people didn’t want to race Carl just because they didn’t want to lose ranking.�

If track and field is to ever reclaim its once lofty placement as a spectator sport in this country, then first it must stoop low and wallow in the mud of gimmicky one-on-one runoffs and schlocky world’s-greatest-athlete decathlons against the NFL all-stars, O’Brien believes.

If Americans won’t go out of their way to watch track and field, O’Brien maintains, then, if you wish to survive, you had better take track and field to them.

“Take your track and field meets to arenas, like how boxing and tennis started out,� O’Brien suggests. “Go to Las Vegas and have an indoor meet. Go to Houston and Phoenix, where running is abundant but not always seen. Every time you go to Eugene, Ore., you’re going to get a great crowd--there’s no doubt about it. New Orleans is the same way. Certain parts of Florida will come and watch track and field meets.

“But you can’t have the U.S. championships in Sacramento or Norwalk, Calif., and expect large turnouts.�

Maybe O’Brien should have spoken before the assemblage at this month’s USATF convention in Dallas.

There, the 2000 U.S. Olympic track and field trials were awarded to, yes, Sacramento.

GOODWILL AMBASSADOR

O’Brien was in Anaheim recently to help promote the 1998 Goodwill Games, which will be held July 19-Aug. 2 in New York. O’Brien, idle in 1997 while resting a stress fracture in his right leg, resumed training in late October and predicts, “I fully intend to break the world record with 9,000 points in New York.�

O’Brien set the decathlon world record of 8,891 points in Talence, France, in 1992. This summer, he sat in an announcer’s booth at the World Championships in Athens and watched Tomas Dvorak of the Czech Republic climb to third on the all-time list by scoring 8,837 points.

So, is a Dvorak-O’Brien rivalry simmering as we head into 1998?

“Not really,� is O’Brien’s swift response.

“In the decathlon, you have to concentrate on yourself. If I do what I expect of myself and what my coach expects of me, then, yeah, I’m going to blow guys out. I think I can blow Tomas out. Even if he has a great decathlon.�

As for potential Stateside challengers, such as Steve Fritz and Chris Huffins--don’t get O’Brien started.

“I’ve been a little disappointed in the Americans,� O’Brien says. “Everybody was so adamant at the U.S. championships--’Well, if you don’t qualify here you shouldn’t get to go to the World Championships.’ When I did get my bid [a wild-card injury waiver], the Americans who were boasting that I didn’t deserve it didn’t come through.

“Fritz came through on the second day and scored pretty well [8,463 points] but still not high enough to get a medal. Huffins is still talking world record when he hasn’t even surpassed an American record that existed [eight] years ago.�

Huffins did not place at the 1997 World Championships after failing to score in the javelin.

“Three throws out of the sector,� O’Brien says, shaking his head. “Hey, pal, it doesn’t take much to stand there and throw it. . . .

“But I think Chris realized it was going to come down to the 1,500 for him--and that’s one area where Chris is even weaker than I am. For me to rip Tomas Dvorak or [Finland’s] Eduard Hamalainen, I’m going to have run a faster 1,500. Chris will never be in the top three or five in the world unless he can run an average 1,500. When I say average, I mean 4:50, 4:55.�

For O’Brien to, in his own words, “put the record over 9,000 or completely out of reach, it’s going to take a good 1,500 meters. . . . But I think it can be done. Absolutely. If I look at my marks in the [last] Olympic Games, I had a subpar long jump, an average high jump, hurdles was average, discus was average, the pole vault was the lowest I’d vaulted in a major competition in three or four years.

“So, it’s definitely within my reach.�

PICABO’S DEBUT

Skier Picabo Street’s long-awaited return to competition produced finishes of 10th and 11th in women’s World Cup sprint downhill and super-giant slalom events Wednesday and Thursday in Val d’Isere, France.

Sidelined for more than a year after undergoing knee surgery, Street first placed 10th in a two-run sprint downhill with a combined time of 2 minutes 2.85 seconds. A day later, in the super-G, she was 11th in a time of 1:08.00.

“This is just what we’re looking for,� said Jim Tracy, who coaches the U.S. women’s downhill/super-G skiers. “Peek’s come back as strong as we hoped and obviously she’s going in the right direction. . . .

“We’ve said all along: Take small steps in Peek’s comeback. Make a plan and stick with it and things will work out. And they have. This is the step we hoped for, so now we want to go to the next step and keep improving.�

Germany’s Katja Seizinger won both the sprint downhill, in 2:01.82, and super-G, in 1:07.09, to equal Jean-Claude Killy’s record of six consecutive World Cup victories.

LUGER WAS A WINNER

Duncan Kennedy never won the Olympic medal he chased on luge tracks in Calgary, Albertville and Lillehammer. He finished 14th in 1988, 10th in 1992, crashed in 1994 and will not have the opportunity to race in 1998, having decided to retire last weekend because of a noncancerous lesion on his brain stem that caused dizzy spells.

But Kennedy will be remembered for upholding an Olympic ideal far nobler than any piece of metal that could be hung around his neck. In 1993, Kennedy helped stave off an attack on African-American teammate Robert Pipkins by tangling with a group of neo-Nazis who had threatened Pipkins in a nightclub in Oberhof, Germany.

With 21 World Cup medals--including two gold--Kennedy, 30, leaves as the most-decorated American racer in the sport.

“It would have been nicer to end my career with [an Olympic] medal around my neck,� Kennedy said last weekend. “But I’d much rather have a neck than a medal around it.�

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Calendar

FIGURE SKATING

* Jan. 4-11: U.S. Figure Skating Championships (Philadelphia).

ALPINE SKIING WORLD CUP

* Saturday-Dec. 28: Alpine World Cup women’s slalom (Lienz, Austria).

* Dec. 30: Alpine World Cup men’s downhill (Bormio, Italy).

* Dec. 30-Jan. 3: U.S. Ski Team World Cup at Lake Placid, N.Y. (Alpine, cross-country, freestyle, Nordic combined and ski jumping. Winners qualify for Olympics.)

BOBSLED

* Dec. 30-31: U.S. two-man Olympic trials (Park City, Utah).

SPEEDSKATING

* Saturday-Dec. 29: U.S. long track Olympic trials (Milwaukee).

* Jan. 10-11 and 17-18: U.S. short-track Olympic trials (Lake Placid, N.Y.).

* Jan. 13-14: World Cup long-track sprint (Baselga di Pine, Italy).

* Jan. 17-18: World Cup long-track all-around (Innsbruck, Austria).

BIATHLON

* Dec. 29-Jan. 3: U.S. Olympic trials (Jericho, Vt.)

SWIMMING

* Jan. 12-18: FINA World Championships (Perth, Australia).