THE VOICE FROM OLYMPUS.

Interview by Kevin Newell

COACH: After the U.S. Olympic men's team is selected this year, when and where will they go into training for Sydney?

CHAPLIN. The team will be selected from July 14 through the 27th in Sacramento. Then, roughly around the 18th and 19th of August, we'll have an optional training camp in San Diego. The kids will be processed on the 20th and they'll leave for Sydney and arrive on Aug. 22. From there they'll go to Brisbane and train at two different sites until around Sept. 13. They can run a couple of meets if they want to. I want to split them up because training at one site all the time can be a little boring.

The athletes will head over to the Olympic Village on Sept. 13. The opening ceremonies start on Sept. 15, track starts on the 22nd. All athletes have to be in Australia by Sept. 10 and the relay teams have to be in by Sept. 3. European competition is over on Sept. 1.

COACH: Will the weather conditions in Australia be markedly different from the normal seasonal conditions in the USA, and will any adjustments in our preparations have to be made?

CHAPLIN: The reason we're staying in Brisbane initially is because they will be having spring when we get there. Their seasons are different than ours. Instead of being 62 degrees, it will be around 70. And it will be warmer in the north.

When you get up near Brisbane and Australia's Gold Coast, you're heading toward the tropics. The farther south you go, the colder it gets. The weather in Sydney will be like March in the San Francisco Bay area. It could be rainy, it could be windy, and it could be cold. The whole idea of going early is to climatize ourselves.

COACH: How many coaches will you have on your staff and how will the training regimen be designed?

CHAPLIN: Aside from myself, we'll have eight coaches and/or managers.

Dick Booth of Arkansas is handling the high jump, long jump, pole vault and triple jump.

Bubba Thornton of Texas is responsible for the 400-meters, 800meters, 400-meter relay and the long relay.

John Moon of Seton Hall is in charge of the 100-meters, 110-meter high hurdles, 200-meters and short relay.

Jerry Quiller of the United States Military Academy has the 1,500-meters; 5,000-meters; 10,000-meters and the steeplechase.

Jay Silvester of Brigham Young, a former world-record holder in the discus, is in charge of the throws: discus, javelin, shot put and hammer.

Then we have an assistant coach/assistant manager, Rob Johnson from Wabash College, who is in charge of outside stadium events, which include the marathon and the 20k and 50k walks.

Dixon Farmer, who runs the U.S. training center in San Diego, will handle the decathlon as well as being an assistant manager.

The head manager is Fred Newhouse, a silver medalist in the 400-meter hurdles and a member of the gold-medal U.S. relay team at the 1976 Montreal Games.

The women's team is coached by Karen Dennis of UNLV, who has seven assistants.

As for the training regimen, most of the athletes have a personal coach who will deal with the area coach.

The only thing we're going to coach is the relays. Everything else we're going to facilitate. But if a kid needs a coach, hasn't got a coach, wants a coach, we're there. Otherwise we'll help facilitate his coach. And of course we're going to have to facilitate between managers and agents. That's just part of the game.

In 1948, we put the kids on a boat, sent them away and waved. Today, we have to deal with agents, lawyers, mothers, coaches, and make sure they have Internet access. It's like moving their lifestyle to Australia for 40 days. It's a large undertaking.

COACH: You have been acclaimed for your remarkable coaching record in the distance events from 5,000 meters up, and including the steeplechase. Has this been a happenstance or an area you have focused on by choice? Will you be personally involved in the coaching of these events?

CHAPLIN: You can take a line and run it across the United States. They call it the Mason-Dixon Line. South of that you will find most of the sprinters. North of that you will find most of the distance runners. And anybody that wants to win something in some league is probably going to win it in a field event, which is in between.

I live in the north -- in the Pacific 10 Conference. That means I get one good sprinter once a decade, whether I need it or not. Even though I was a sprinter myself.

When I was an assistant coach I handled the throws and the distances. And when I became the head coach, I handled all the running events and gave my assistants all the field events. Because it's very hard to be the field-events coach when you're the head coach.

You can let somebody time somebody. You can let somebody watch somebody pass somebody a baton. But it's very hard with a small staff, to leave the field when somebody is pole vaulting.

I focused on distance events basically because of the weather. Though I had national champions in the short hurdles, short sprints, and quarter mile, set world records in the distance medley, and also won the Pacific 10 Conference in both sprints, I knew we were not going to be a sprint power per se with lots of sprinters.

The only way we were going to survive was with lots of distance runners, because the weather is more conducive to running distance. That's why I gravitated towards the distance events. It was just sure survival.

At Washington State (1968-1994), we had two world-record holders and an Olympic champion in the steeple. We had three world records in the 10,000meters and two in the 5,000meters. And we were the only college ever to set world records at 5, 10 and steeple.

Washington State still holds the current collegiate records for 1,500-meters, 5,000-meters, 10,000-meters, 3,000-meters. Every record from 2,000 and up are held by Washington State Cougars. We have a lock on those events.

I had 17 young men win 37 gold medals at the NCAA's. But Washington State has been a track power since the early part of the 20th century.

At the Olympics, I will facilitate with the distance events.

COACH: Talking about distance events: Is there any realistic chance of anyone challenging the Kenyans or of the Americans scoring in events over 1,500 meters? What accounts for the incredible superiority of the Kenyans?

CHAPLIN: I think you can build a case for Bob Kenn0edy in the 10,000-meters. Kennedy ran a 13-flat 5,000 in 1996. Today, the Kenyans and Ethiopians would sit on him and outsprint him.

If, at Sydney, he moves to the 10,000 and goes out at a 13 flat pace, he might be able to sprint with the Kenyans at the finish.

That changes the whole ballgame. Kennedy has good range. He's wo00n the cross-country and the mile. He's got what it takes to be a great runner.

As for the Kenyans superiority, first of all they live at altitude. That means that they probably have more red blood cells just because of where they live.

The second thing is that they train and don't realize it. When most of them go to school, they don't take buses. They run to school and back.

The third thing is their emphasis on a single talent. While they're running, ours are playing baseball and football. Maybe a few kids are throwing a javelin. We have one qualifier in the javelin for the Olympic games. We have all kinds of talent, except that it's involved in all kinds of other activities. And there's no way out for us, so to speak.

Unlike the Kenyans, we have only a limited number of individuals who do track. That's the cultural difference between the Kenyans and ourselves in track.

COACH: Has the once formidable Russian supremacy in track been decimated by the break-up of National Socialism? Do they work as hard at track as they did under the communist regime?

CHAPLIN: Well, partially.

They just have to get their act together. The talent is there; the coaching is there. They work as hard as they ever have. They are still formidable. But the empire is gone and they have to sort out the state-run system and they don't have as much money.

In distance racing they are no longer the great power they were. Unlike other aspects of their track program, they've had a lousy set of coaches in those events and they haven't modernized. The breakup of the Soviet Union has gotten more private coaches, more individual coaches involved. The state hand is not as heavy, but in the end they'll do better because of it.

COACH: Will the drug scandals in Germany, China, Russia, and Bulgaria have any marked impact upon drug testing at the Olympics?

CHAPLIN: No. What's going to have a marked impact is the fact that marijuana testing has been added. And that's a disaster. I'm not condoning drugs, but let me explain. If you go to Amsterdam, you can get high just by wandering around the streets. The point is you could have 200-300 positive marijuana tests. Because it stays in your body a long time.

And they're saying that the tests may be so sensitive that you could go in a room at any lifestyle club; not smoke anything; stay in the room for an hour and a half; get tested a week later and be positive. So the marijuana test is going to be the one I'm worried about.

COACH: As you survey American track several months before the national tryouts for the Olympic team, where do you believe our strength will come from? Both on the track and in the field.

CHAPLIN: You have to look at the World Championships last year and what has happened since. We won the 100, 200 and the 400. Set a world record in the 400. And we won both relays. In the hurdles, we had one kid get hurt and another kid false-start. But we're OK in the high hurdles. We won the discus and the shot. And we now have three shot-putters over 70.

We have a kid who has high-jumped 7-9. So I would say the high jump is looking good.

In the pole vault we have two or three 19 footers -- we're looking good there.

The shot and discus look good.

We have one hammer thrower, one javelin thrower at this point.

It's wide open in the long jump and triple jump. We didn't score a point at the World Championships in those events. Let us hope there's someone out there.

But the sprints and the hurdles and the relays are strong. We also qualified four walkers in the 50k walk, for heaven's sake!

COACH: Can America restore the luster of track in the U.S.? What exactly is the problem and what can be done about it?

CHAPLIN: What's wrong with our luster? We won 10 gold medals on the men's side in 1996. But we lost the short relay. And any time the U.S. loses a short relay; that's akin to a hanging.

The main problem is that we have a disconnect here. If you notice the statistics in high school sports, track and field is either first or second in the number of participants. So we have plenty of young men and women participating. It's just that as they go up the ladder we're losing more and more of them.

And, remember; the rest of the world is not primitive. It can compete with us. The days of us winning 18 medals out of 24 are over. We won 10 last time, which is not bad.

It's a little early to be sounding the death knell for American track and field. I believe that Frank Shorter was right when he said: "What we do is shake the plum tree, choose three plums, and let the rest rot for four years."

Our system of funding -- how we do it -- tends to be overloaded in an Olympic year. We should be loading the year after the Olympics.

COACH: Is there a relationship between the diminished interest in track and the beginning of big-moneyed professionalism -- with the super stars turning up wherever the money is biggest? Hasn't this meant fewer meets and a greatly diminished dramatization of the sport in the U.S.?

CHAPLIN: No, not really. Because what has happened here is that the advent of significant money has extended the careers of the some kid break a world record or achieve a personal best. But in the end, the whole thing is watching kids from different places come together and grow as individuals and as a team -- and then go on and do something productive in life. It is tremendously gratifying to know that you have played a role in their lives.

The running part is fine and the jumping part is fine. It's exciting for the day and the minute. But you have to learn that the sun will come up tomorrow. Remember that it's just a game and not a federal case.

COACH: What track coaches influenced you most over the years?

CHAPLIN: I'm the Olympic men's track coach, only the 17th male ever to be that. And until a month ago, all of them since 1968 were alive. Since then, Bill Bowerman has died and so has Larry Ellis.

But I would say that people like Dean Cromwell of Southern California, Jack Mooberry of Washington State, Bowerman at Oregon, and Payton Jordan of Stanford -- who has been a longtime friend of mine -- influenced me the most. Three of the four have been Olympic coaches.