FANTASTIC 4 TRACK'S NEXT GENERATION CAN REVOLUTIONIZE SPORT.

Byline: Billy Witz Staff Writer

Young, fast and charismatic, they are a marketer's dream. Jeremy Wariner, the 400-meter gold medalist, and Allyson Felix, the graceful, telegenic teen whose face is the future of women's track. Justin Gatlin, the sprinter with a personality that sparkles like his Olympic gold medal, and Alan Webb, who has given the American mile a buzz it hasn't seen in the post-Steve Prefontaine era.

Together they are fronting a legion of youthful, talented athletes that some say could be the United States' best in track and field in several generations.

The question is: are they fast enough to help the sport run away from its own image?

Track and field has been on life support in the U.S. for nearly 40 years, as crowds have dwindled, events and sponsorship dried up, and TV ratings have all but disappeared.

Then, when it couldn't get any worse, there was BALCO.

While drugs have been a part of track's sub-culture since the 70s, things went mainstream last summer with the BALCO scandal. At the Olympic Trials, the story lines were about Marion Jones (Thousand Oaks High) having more success running away from reporters than the competition and whether athletes who had been fingered in grand jury testimony, but hadn't tested positive, should be allowed to compete.

The Olympics were only slightly better, if only because many of the suspects weren't there, having been suspended or unable to qualify for a trip to Athens.

Suddenly the U.S. team, one of the oldest teams at the Sydney games, became the Kiddie Corps, and when some of the newcomers, like the 21-year-old Wariner and Gatlin won gold, and 19-year-old Felix (L.A. Baptist of North Hills) and 21-year-old Lauryn Williams took surprising silvers in the 200 and 100, it's easy to see why USA Track and Field, is confident in a return to glory for the once-proud team.

``I try to talk about it as much as possible,'' Williams said of the youth movement. ``Not to take away from other athletes of the past, but there's been a lot of negative things going on in the past few years.

``By focusing on these new faces that are up and coming it can bring a lot of light to track and field, a lot of media coverage, so I always say Allyson Felix, Lauryn Williams, Sanya Richards and Lashinda Demus.''

Williams is the first to acknowledge she has plenty of talking to do. While she may get recognized in Europe, she jokes that the two the stars in her adopted hometown of Miami - Shaquille O'Neal and Dwyane Wade - wouldn't know her if they passed her on the street.

Such anonymity (read: lack of interest) has put the sport in a bind as it tries to climb out of the BALCO mine shaft, according to Paul Swangard, a professor at the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon.

``When the congressional hearings were over with baseball, the media went back to writing about baseball,'' Swangard said. ``With track, most sports fans only read about track and steroids. They don't read about the competition. A lot of people may not know the 100-meter record was broken (two weeks ago by Jamaican Asafa Powell). It's hard to generate any excitement when nobody knows who is winning.''

If those in the sport believe they have a chance to turn this around, it's because USATF has worked to repair the rancorous relationship with its athletes held by its precursor, The Athletics Congress. As a result, many elite athletes are trying to raise awareness not just of themselves - as some accused Carl Lewis of doing in the 80s - but for the sport.

Two years ago, USATF began to hold retreats for its elite athletes, soliciting ideas on how to import the sport's standing. Among the suggestions was to make the sport's stars more approachable.

``For athletes and viewers, we need to be more personable,'' Gatlin said. ``Obviously track isn't a hard-hitting event like football or a glamour event like basketball or has an All-American history like baseball, but it's been around longer than any other sport. That's what confuses me.

``The best thing to do is be involved with the audience, be more involved with the media and show them I'm a regular person, I do regular things.''

There are, however, two sides of transparency. Just as employing sports' most stringent drug-testing program inevitably leads to the bad news of catching cheats, being exposed more means more exposure to questions about drugs.

At this week's national championships at the Home Depot Center, drugs have been a hot topic of discussion.

The most anticipated races Friday were the first heats of the 100 meters in which Jones and her boyfriend Tim Montgomery, who is competing while he awaits a ruling on his appeal of a lifetime ban from the sport for steroid use, made rare appearances (Montgomery, however, withdrew from a 100-meter preliminary race on Friday afternoon).

Felix, who idolized Jones while growing up in Valencia, seemed uncomfortable earlier this week when she was asked about possibly competing against Jones this weekend.

``I guess so,'' she said, when asked if she as looking forward to it, hesitating for a moment. ``I've looked up to Marion for so long.''

Meanwhile, 15 feet away, Gatlin was having to answer questions about his association with coach Trevor Graham, who touched off the BALCO scandal by sending a syringe filled with the designer steroid THG to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. Several of Graham's former pupils have tested positive for steroids.

``This BALCO thing has nothing to do with us,'' Gatlin said.

``I know what to say 'no' to and what to say 'yes' to. If any allegations come up, I know it doesn't involve me because I want to go out there and run the best race I can clean.''

All the questions - and even the presence of Jones, the disgraced former golden girl of track - serve as a reminder that if there's something to be gained with drugs, there is plenty to be lost besides seconds.

``If they say one thing about BALCO, it's going to blow up,'' Wariner said.

Over the next two days, before relatively modest crowds, America's best and brightest will put one foot in front of another as they bid for spots in the World Championships in Helsinki in August.

How much ground they'll cover in changing the image of their sport is another matter. It wasn't so long ago that Jones was expected to handle the task.

``Track is more than one person,'' Swangard said. ``I think they need the Superfriends. They need that Hall of Champions sort of cache, where when they come to town it's the all-stars. They all have to have their own superpower.''

Getting track back on track is indeed a tough task, one that just might be beyond the grasp of mere mortals.

Billy Witz, [phone]

billy.witz(at)dailynews.com

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(1 -- 4) Fantastic foursome: From left, Allyson Felix, Alan Webb, Justin Gatlin and Jeremy Wariner are out to put track and field in the U.S. back on the map and save it from an untimely demise.

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