Salazar charges TAC with bribe attempt
NEW YORK (AP) — Alberto Salazar, the fastest
marathoner in history, charged Monday that officials
of The Athletics Congress, the national governing
body for track and field, had offered him a bribe of
$50,000 to $60,000 to run in the Los Angeles
Marathon May 14.
Salazar, who said he rejected the offer made late
last year, said the officials were Ollan Cassell, TAC
executive director, and Alvin Chriss, a lawyer who
manages the trust fund for road running and track
and field athletes under TAC’s jurisdiction.
Chriss and Cassell denied the allegations.
“They were willing to pay me $50,000 to $60,000"
to run in the Los Angeles race, Salazar said. "They
were trying to bribe me."
He said $40,000 of that money would be for con
ducting a clinic the day before the race. Salazar said
Chriss suggested that would be one way of cir
cumventing TAC’s rules against accepting money
outright for running. The rest of the money could be
put into a trust fund for Salazar, the distance runner
claimed Chriss told him.
Salazar's comments came during a telephone
hookup from his Eugene home, to a luncheon of the
Metropolitan Track Writers' Association.
Chriss was quoted in Monday's New York Times
as calling Salazar's charge "an incorrect assertion."
It doesn't “even have a kernel of truth in it," he
said.
Attempts by The Associated Press to reach
Chriss by telephone were unsuccessful. His
secretary said he deferred all comments concerning
the matter to TAC.
At TAC's headquarters in Indianapolis, Cassell
said, "This is another of Alberto’s histrionic
lessons,” a reference to Salazar's comments after
winning the 1981 New York City Marathon in which
he called the organization “hypocrites" and
“thieves."
“This is not true," Cassell added. "I've never
spoken to Mr. Salazar in person nor on the telephone.
If I were to speak to Mr. Salazar, it certainly wouldn't
be to propose something that would violate the rules
of The Athletics Congress, something that would
jeopardize TAC’s and my own standing with the IAAF
(the International Amateur Athletic Federation, the
world governing body for the sport).
"Likewise, no members of the TAC staff have
ever made such a proposal, either to Mr. Salazar, nor
any of his coaches or his representatives."
Salazar said the offer was not made to him
directly, but was made through his coach, Bill
Dellinger.
Salazar said he decided to disclose the offer
because TAC had criticized him for not running in the
Boston Marathon, which would qualify United States
runners for the inaugural World Championships at
Helsinki Aug. 7-14 Salazar had requested that his vic
tory in the 1982 New York City Marathon be his quali
fying race for the Championships. TAC's Long
Distance Running Committee rejected the request at
the group s convention at Philadelphia in December.
Alberto Salazar
Emerald Photo
Gibbs weary of ‘super slide’ r
LOS ANGELES (AP) — One
glance at the record book told
Washington coach Joe Gibbs
that success can be fleeting
and misleading.
The year after the Pitt
sburgh Steelers won Super
Bowl XIV, they failed to even
make the playoffs. The same
thing happened to the Oakland
Raiders following Super Bowl
XV and to the San Francisco
49ers last year.
“I've told my players, and I
will tell them again, that some
people can deal with adversity
better than they can with suc
cess,” Gibbs said Monday, the
day after his Redskins won
Super Bowl XVII with a 27-17
victory over the Miami
Dolphins.
"I think what happens when
you win is that you
automatically develop pro
blems dealing with players,
getting them signed Suddenly
everyone is unhappy. They
Swimmers finish 4th
Despite several costly set
backs, Oregon placed fourth
out of 14 teams in the 20th an
nual Dolphin Invitational swim
meet which concluded Sunday
at Leighion Pool
Concord-Pleasant Hill, a
combination of two teams
from the San Francisco Bay
area, took top honors followed
by Seattle's Chinook Aqua
Club and third went to San
Ramone Valley Swim Club
from California
The Ducks found
themselves trying to catch up
after Friday, when classes and
mid-term exams limited the
number of Oregon par
ticipants in the first round
“I'm real pleased," Oregon
coach Dan Cole said of the
Ducks' performance. "If not
for a relay being disqualified,
we would have ended up
third.”
Oregon freshman Mark Can
nard was the Ducks' only dou
ble winner, with victories in
the 100 and 200-meter
backstroke events For the
women, Tina Helm recorded a
first place finish in the 200
backstroke, and picked up
seconds in the 200 and 400 in
dividual medleys and the 100
backstroke
"We swam very well. It was
the best overall competition
we’ve had all year It came dur
ing midterms, and, all things
considered, it went really
good," Cole said, of his team’s
high finish.
Oregon's relay teams "did
very well," according to Cole.
The women finished third in
the 800 freestyle while the
men were runners-up in the
400 and 800-meter freestyle
relays.
Cole called the meet "ex
cellent,” and added that it
should help a lot heading into
the post-season meets.
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want more That's human
nature You want more 'cause
you've done more.”
He said if the Redskins
begin believing they are better
than they really are "that
would kill us quicker than
anything because we re a total
team If we come back with
that attitude, we ll get beaten,
beaten badly.”
But Gibbs admits he didn’t
expect this degree of success
to come this quickly, in only
his second season as
Washington’s head coach.
"My gut feeling last training
camp — and I said honestly at
that time, because our
schedule was rated the
toughest in the NFL — was
that, going off what we did last
year, I would have thought 8-8
again would have been a
realistic shot for us," he said.
As a coach, as soon as you
win your last game, you start
worrying about the next one,"
he said. "In football, you build a
monster no matter which way
you're going. If you're winning,
people expect you to win,
demand you win, from the
owner on down. "
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