Closing Trials Keeps Vitale Away, but It Doesn’t Keep Him Quiet

One reason the Amateur Basketball Assn. of the USA closed the Olympic men’s trials to the media this week in Colorado Springs was to avoid the second-guessing that occurred in 1984, when Auburn’s Charles Barkley was not named to the team despite one of his uniquely brilliant performances.

“We don’t want Dick Vitale picking our team,” said Bill Wall, ABAUSA’s executive director.

Wall underestimates Vitale, once a frenetic college and pro coach who became an even more frenetic television commentator. Vitale does not have to be inside the gym in Colorado Springs to choose the team. He can do it from his home in Florida.

In a telephone interview last week, Vitale said he believes forwards Danny Manning of Kansas and J.R. Reid of North Carolina, center David Robinson of the Navy and Kentucky guard Rex Chapman are certain to make the 12-man roster. All but certain, he said, are forwards Danny Ferry of Duke and Sean Elliott of Arizona.

He said he also gives Alonzo Mourning, a 6-11 center who has signed with Georgetown, a chance to become the first high school player selected to the Olympic basketball team. It does not hurt Mourning that Georgetown’s John Thompson is the head coach.

The team’s strength?

The front-line of Manning, Reid and Robinson.

“Not even I could screw that up,” Vitale said.

The team’s weakness?

Outside shooting and no obvious choice at point guard, although Vitale said he likes Syracuse’s Sherman Douglas over Notre Dame’s David Rivers and UCLA’s Pooh Richardson.

“Pooh might be a little bit out of control for John Thompson’s style of play,” Vitale said. “He has a world of talent, but he has to show that he can pass up his shot and play without the ball.”

Another player who might belong in that category is Bradley’s Hersey Hawkins, the nation’s leading scorer last season.

Overall?

“The gold medal is not automatic because international competition is getting tougher and tougher,” Vitale said. “There’s a lot of talent to choose from for this team, but it’s nothing like the ’84 team with (Michael) Jordan, (Patrick) Ewing, (Wayman) Tisdale, Chris Mullin and Alvin Robertson. That team was a Rolls-Royce, the best I’ve ever seen in the Olympics.”

Of the 85 players expected at the start of the trials Wednesday, 32 will be chosen to appear in a doubleheader scrimmage next Sunday at Denver’s McNichols Arena. Two days later, about 20 players will be selected for a six-week training camp, which begins in mid-July. The final 12 will be named on Sept. 2, 15 days before the Summer Olympics begin in Seoul, South Korea.

The ABAUSA had no reason to worry about Vitale’s presence in Colorado Springs. He has another commitment. Filming of his first movie role, an appearance as himself in a Paramount comedy, begins this week in Los Angeles.

The Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph revealed last week that the U.S. Olympic Foundation, established with funds from the 1984 L.A. Olympics, has invested in corporations with direct ties to South Africa.

Foundation officials will not disclose how much of the $150 million investment portfolio is involved, but one U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) source said it might be as much as $15 million.

Former USOC President William Simon, chairman of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees, told USA Today that the board has often discussed the issue and decided not to divest because it would damage the Foundation financially.

At least one trustee, Anita DeFrantz of Los Angeles, disagrees and has made her position clear to the board and to the USOC. USOC President Robert Helmick has appointed a committee to study the issue.

“With 5,000 companies to choose from, you can’t tell me that you have to rely on the 200 companies that are in South Africa to put together an investment portfolio,” DeFrantz said.

“It’s fairly clear it’s not a financial issue. It’s a moral issue. It’s an issue of who we (USOC members) are and what kind of statement we want to make. I think action is going to be taken.”

DeFrantz is president of Los Angeles’ Amateur Athletic Foundation, which also was established with the surplus from the L.A. Games. “One of the things I’m most proud of is that we don’t invest in any companies that do business in South Africa,” she said.

Comment: If a few minor details can be cleared off the negotiating table, and if Ben Johnson’s hamstring injury of last week is no more serious than reported, it appears as if the world’s fastest men, Johnson and Carl Lewis, will meet in a series of three races this summer in Europe, two at 100 meters and one at 200 meters.

In a sport where many of the top performers not only demand guaranteed appearance fees but also guaranteed victories by refusing to race against each other outside of the Olympics or the World Championships, this is welcome news.

The unwelcome news is that it took almost $1 million from an unidentified Japanese sponsor to arrange for Johnson and Lewis to get together before the Summer Olympics in Seoul.

Unfortunately, track and field cannot always count on that kind of financial support. The sport’s leadership must find other ways to attract the best to compete against each other or risk a continuing decline in popularity.

Speaking of which. . . .

While Lewis and Johnson may run against each other, could it be that no one else who has the slightest chance of beating either will be asked to fill any of the lanes around them?

That is the suspicion of Jerome Stanley, manager for former Rams’ wide receiver Ron Brown, who retired from football this year to return to sprinting. He finished fourth in the 100 at the 1984 Summer Olympics.

Stanley told Times columnist Scott Ostler that when he asked if Brown could join the Lewis-Johnson field for the 100 in either Paris on June 27 or Zurich on Aug. 17, Johnson’s manager, Larry Heidebrecht, told him: “I want to make sure Ben and Carl finish one-two.”

Heidebrecht was unavailable for comment.

“I guess they’re going to fill the lanes with athletes who won’t be part of the race,” Brown said. “That’s no race. Let everyone in who can go.

“Just give me a lane. I don’t need top billing. None of that. Just get me in the race.”

Olympic Notes

Cuba has until Tuesday to decide whether it will send a baseball team to Seoul. Although the Cubans have announced they will not attend the Olympics, there has been speculation that they might compete in baseball since it is only a demonstration sport. If the International Baseball Assn. doesn’t hear from Cuba by Tuesday, Italy will complete the field. . . . Among those invited who are not attending the U.S. men’s basketball trials this week are Louisville’s Pervis Ellison, North Carolina’s Jeff Lebo, Temple’s Tim Perry, Oklahoma’s Mookie Blaylock and Harvey Grant and Michigan’s Gary Grant. Coach John Thompson said he believes the two Grants were persuaded by agents to decline invitations so that the players’ marketability in the NBA wouldn’t be damaged. Gary Grant said he is remaining in Ann Arbor this summer to finish school.

Followers of U.S. track were shocked last week by San Jose State’s decision to drop the sport. Twenty years ago, the university had Lee Evans, John Carlos and Tommie Smith on the 1968 Summer Olympic team. Carlos and Smith are more remembered for their clinched-fist civil rights protest on the victory stand, but their performances on the track should not be forgotten. Smith was first and Carlos third in the 200 meters. Evans set a record in the 400 meters (43.86) that still stands. “San Jose State practically won the 1968 Olympics single-handedly,” assistant track coach Ralph Preiman told Newsday. “It’s like they’re trying to get rid of a historical landmark here.” San Jose once was known as Speed City.

Because of injuries, javelin thrower Fatima Whitbread, who gave Great Britain its only gold medal in last year’s World Championships, said she may retire before the Olympics. . . . Kenya’s John Ngugi, who won his third consecutive world cross-country title this year, may miss the Olympics because of a hip injury.

Published reports in Europe claim that Turkey paid as much as $1.5 million to Bulgaria in exchange for Bulgaria’s permission for weightlifter Naim Suleymanoglu to compete in the Olympics. Suleymanoglu, who defected from Bulgaria to Turkey in 1986, would have been ineligible to compete in the Olympics without Bulgaria’s permission. . . . Joan Benoit Samuelson, who missed the women’s marathon trials because she wasn’t totally recovered from a hip injury, has not decided whether to compete in the 10,000 meters at the track and field trials, July 15-23, in Indianapolis. She told UPI this week that she’s not sure she wants to go to Seoul, giving the uncertain political situation there as one of the reasons. “I wouldn’t be telling you the truth if I said that didn’t come into my thinking,” she said. “But that’s not the primary reason. Abby (her daughter) would be almost a year old by then, and that’s a long way to travel.”

Olympic figure skaters will be at the Forum next Sunday for the 17th stop on their 22-city tour. Gold medalist Brian Boitano was scheduled Saturday to arrive in Chicago at 3 p.m., be at Comiskey Park to throw out the first ball at a White Sox game at 6 p.m., appear for a television interview and then be at Chicago Stadium for the figure skating show at 8 p.m. The Chicago Tribune’s Mike Conklin said that Boitano should have tried speed skating. . . . Of reports that the East Germans are reconsidering and may not allow Katarina Witt to appear in Western ice shows in the future, a reporter for the French sports newspaper, L’Equipe, wrote: “The East Germans are conservative and difficult to figure, but how can they choose to deprive forever the West from the beautiful Katarina Witt?” Witt is scheduled to appear at the Forum, but the Soviet Olympic championship pairs team of Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov bypassed the tour, citing fatigue after their second-place finish at the World Championships.