Michael Phelps as work in progress

Michael Phelps had it Friday morning, turning in a sensational prelim swim. He didn’t quite have it Friday night when it counted, losing by one-hundredth of a second in the 100 butterfly to Tom Shields at the U.S. national championships in Irvine, California. The upshot: Phelps is back on the national team. For him, for the U.S. team, for swimming in general, that’s all good. Now, though, the real work begins. As Bob Bowman, his longtime coach, said Friday night, “I think he needs to go home and put in some more practices.”

All that is going to have to wait until after the Pan Pacific championships later this summer in Australia, when the Phelps phenomenon goes overseas — in essence, more under-the-spotlight practice time for Phelps to work on his 100 fly, 100 freestyle, 100 backstroke and 200 individual medley. There may be moments of greatness. There also may be moments of, say what?

Remember, these nationals were only the fifth meet of the Phelps comeback after a 20-month competitive layoff.

The race Friday night not only marked Phelps’ best chance to get back onto the international stage for the next two years — a quirk of the USA Swimming rules for this summer’s Pan Pacs and, presumably, next year’s world championships in Russia — it also underscored just how much more work lies ahead for Phelps himself before the 2016 Rio Olympics and, as well, how much better swimming itself has gotten in the two years since the London Games without him and, of course, directly because of him.

Phelps had finished seventh in the 100 free on Wednesday, missing the turn in the shadows.

He has other races on the program: the 100 backstroke and 200 individual medley.

Phelps is the London 2012 200 IM champion. But that race is altogether a different sort of test for someone who has been back at it for months, not years.

And the 100 fly has been one of his mainstays.

Phelps is the gold medalist in the 100 fly at the last three Olympic Games and, moreover, at the 2007, 2009 and 2011 world championships.

He is the world-record holder in the event, 49.82, set in a memorable duel at the 2009 Rome worlds with Milorad Cavic.

Phelps is of course the holder of 22 Olympic medals, 18 of them gold.

What gets obscured in the glare of all that gold, however, is what it took to get there, and an elemental premise:

Swimming is hard.

Not to say other sports aren’t.

But at the elite level, swimming always — to repeat, always — reveals whether a racer has put in the work.

This is what Phelps learned, to his detriment, at the Shanghai worlds in 2011. He had not put in the work. Ryan Lochte had. Lochte had an awesome meet. Phelps, to be gracious, did not. Phelps acknowledged as much, and put in just enough to come back in London to win six more medals, then go on his retirement tour.

Now he is back.

The Phelps who went eight-for-eight in Beijing was a guy who over the years put in ferocious amounts of work. He and Bowman famously did not take off weekends or holidays.

With two years now until Rio, the question now in front of Phelps and Bowman is elemental. The work is there to be done. Will it?

Phelps’ legacy is assured. He is the greatest Olympic athlete of not just our time but all time. What he chooses to do is up to him.

Before these recent meets, he has acknowledged nerves — very un-Phelps like. And he knows why, too, saying it’s because he hasn’t put in the training to feel ready to do what’s necessary. That training not only lends fitness, it gives him a feel for what’s what — so, for instance, he doesn’t glide turns, like he did in Friday’s final.

Shields, the winner already here of the 200 fly, finished the 100 in 51.29.

Phelps touched in 51.30, done in by nerves and by a crummy turn mid-way. Typically, Phelps takes 16 strokes in the first half of the 100 fly. This time, it was 16 strokes and a glide before the turn. That cost him.

After the race, Phelps said, “Bob and I were talking: if I want to go 50-point, or if I want to go better, I need more. I need more training. I need more endurance. I need to feel more comfort with my stroke. There are just a lot of things that need to happen. I understand that.”

Bowman: “It’s not fitness. It’s the knowledge that he’s getting up there against these other guys who are on fire and he knows what he has done to get here. And it ain’t what he used to do to get here.”

Phelps also said, “I just felt out of it, not my normal self at finals.

“Normally, I’m very relaxed, very ready. Like Bob said, it’s probably because I’m not used to being in this kind of shape, I guess, shape or this kind of feeling going into a meet. Normally, I can look back and say I’ve done all the training, I’ve done everything I’ve needed to do to prepare myself. You know, with having a year and a half off, and maybe not really going as hard as I probably should have at some of the parts during the year, it shows. And that’s something I understand.

“There are things like this that help me and motivate more than anything else. I’m somebody who can’t stand to lose. I don’t care if it’s by a hundredth or five seconds … I can not stand to lose. This will definitely motivate me … this will definitely be something that sticks with me over the next year leading up to, hopefully, world championships.”

Two years until Rio seems like a long time. It is. And yet — it’s not.

Before this meet, Phelps acknowledged that his swimming and fitness are still very much a work in progress.

When he got back into the water, he said, he was 30 pounds overweight. So he cut out red meat for six months. When did that end? “I pretty much just ended it.”

His freestyle had “been off over the last couple of weeks,” Phelps said, Bowman elaborating that “we always did everything for a 200 before, and then the 100 kind of came out of that, and now we’ve been really trying to do it for a 100 and it’s not — he’s just getting used to that, the tempo and stuff of it.”

Asked about doing a longer race, like a 200 free, Phelps said, “I’m not anywhere close to being able to swim that race at the level I would want to swim it at.”

The thing is, while Phelps is working his way back, the world is not going to be standing still. Shields said Friday night that he had grown up — nearby, in Huntington Beach, California — “worshipping” the likes of Phelps and Ryan Lochte, watching them on TV six years ago in Beijing.

Now he and many, many others are absolutely wanting to take down Phelps or, for that matter, anyone.

Five years ago, in Rome, 43 world records went down. This was at the height of the plastic-suit craze. The experts thought some records might stand for 20 or more years.

Now, it seems, each and every record is potentially at risk.

Why?

Because, in large measure, Phelps has inspired a huge new wave of talent.

And what did Phelps always say was his primary goal, above all else? To grow the sport. So he has only himself to thank for the enhanced competition.

Reading out the start lists from the 100 fly final: six of the eight guys swam lifetime bests in the prelims. Phelps and Lochte — who would finish fifth Friday night — were the only two who did not.

Phelps even noted it, saying after the morning swim, “As soon as Ryan and I saw those guys go 51, we were like, what is this? Can’t we have an easy morning? But I guess we just have to go every time.”

All Phelps did in the morning swim was go 51.17, the fastest time in the world in 2014 — 12-hundredths faster than Chad le Clos’ time at the Commonwealth Games.

For comparison, Phelps’ morning swim was faster than the 51.21 he went to win the London 2012 100 fly final.

Along the way, Phelps is going to throw out glimmers like this.

The trick for Phelps — as he and Bowman acknowledged Friday night — is for those one-offs to become consistent.

The plain fact is that Phelps makes everyone around him better. Most of the time that’s evident through the times themselves. Sometimes it’s simply race strategy and getting the opportunity to swim with the best swimmer in the world — the best of all time — just once.

That famous 10,000-hour rule? The one that says it takes you 10,000 hours to become an expert in something? In swim terms, swimming next to Phelps just once, either in practice or a race, and you experience the 10,000-hour rule in less than a minute.

Now it’s on Phelps to, once more, make himself better. This is the hardest trick there is. But also the most satisfying, the most rewarding.

“As he gets back into it, he’ll be good,” Bowman said. “As he does some more work, he’ll be good. More confidence. More prepared.”

Ledecky makes beautiful music in 200 free

Katie Ledecky took down Missy Franklin in the women’s 200 freestyle Thursday evening at the U.S. nationals in Irvine, California, and though both laughed and made all sweet about it because that’s how they are, and Franklin even danced on deck when the poolside announcer talked about the Backstreet Boys, this — when, years from now, they look back — may well be one of the Katie Ledecky signature moments. Ledecky touched in 1:55.16, a full 1.24 ahead of Franklin. It was the second-fastest time in the world this year and, for Ledecky, a personal best. Which ought to give everyone pause, because Ledecky just turned 17 in March and has so far concentrated on the 400 and above. She simply has not raced the 200 much. As she learns the race, she probably will get a lot, lot faster.

The two of them are — at once — racers, teammates and friends, Ledecky headed for Stanford, Franklin already at Berkeley, the both of them expected mainstays for years to come not just on the U.S. team but on the American 4x200 relay.

That relay, in fact, is what Ledecky — and coach Bruce Gemmell — have said is the thing that drew her down to the 200 from the distance events she has come to dominate.

Then again, she was entered in Irvine in, among other events, the 100 free, too. She simply is becoming so good that she has to try.

Last year, at the world championships in Barcelona, after Ledecky was named the meet’s outstanding swimmer, she said Franklin should have had the honor.

This was their back-and-forth then:

“I am sooooooo proud of Katie. She was absolutely unbelievable. I think she has probably been my absolute favorite swimmer to watch ever." — Franklin

"Missy deserves it probably more than I do. Missy had an incredible week. We are all so proud of her. What she did this week, we were sitting there in awe." — Ledecky

This was them Thursday on the pool deck:

“You never know with Missy. It was a tough race. I just enjoyed being in the final.” — Ledecky

“It’s so special. Watching Katie in the 1500, the 800, it’s a treat for everyone. Being able to race her in the 200, it just makes you better.” — Franklin

“I watch her all the time. She’s amazing. It’s great to watch her here and learn from her.” — Franklin

This is how this sort of thing is really is.

Here’s how it is, too:

On Thursday night, Katie Ledecky slipped down into a distance that Missy Franklin owned last year and Ledecky was more than a full second better. So what does that mean for each going forward, and for the U.S. team, and for world swimming?

This was Franklin, of the five gold medals in London, the six golds at the 2013 worlds in Barcelona, including that 200 free.

Ledecky came to Irvine the winner of gold in London in the 800, when she was just 15. In Barcelona, at 16, she won the 400, 800 and 1500 and set two world records in the two distance events. She has since lowered both distance marks — both this past June at a low-key meet in Texas, both by more than two seconds.

On Wednesday, as the Irvine meet got started, Ledecky flirted with the world record and easily won the 800. Franklin, meanwhile, took the 100 free over Simone Manuel, another rising teen talent who, like Ledecky, is headed for Stanford.

In the 100 free prelims, Ledecky had finished 13th.

In Thursday morning’s 200 free prelims, Franklin put together an easy 1:57.83.

Ledecky, meanwhile, went 1:55.75. That was the morning’s fastest showing and, as well, the fourth-fastest time in the world in 2014.

Allison Schmitt, the London 2012 200 gold medalist who curiously failed to qualify for the Barcelona team, missed out, again. She finished in 1:59.5, good only for 11th place.

The 200 free was the first event on Thursday evening’s sun-dappled program. Ledecky drew Lane 4, Franklin Lane 5.

By 100 meters, Ledecky was in the lead.

At 150 meters, Ledecky was riding noticeably higher in the water than Franklin.

The final turn sealed the deal.

Their splits over the back half of the race — that is, the final 100 meters — are instructive:

Ledecky: 29:58, 28.94.

Franklin: 29.94, 29.72.

Franklin’s finishing time of 1:56.4, it must be said, was 10th-fastest of 2014. She swam an excellent race.

It must also be noted that Franklin went on about 75 minutes later Thursday to win the 200 backstroke, in 2:08.38, and that no one came within two seconds of her.

Ledecky’s work for the night, however, was over. She had well and thoroughly won. Perhaps her only disappointment — though there was none of this to be spoken off, at least out loud — is that she had not gone under 1:55. The world-best time this year is 1:55.04, from Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom.

“I wasn’t really worried about the time,” Ledecky said afterward. “I just wanted to get into a good race and swim the best race I could.”

She also said, “The best part about my race was my tempo. I think I did a really good job of increasing my tempo throughout my race and my arms didn’t really die, so I was happy with that.”

Earlier in her career — it seems almost ridiculous to say “earlier in her career” of someone who is 17 but the phraseology is lacking in the English language — Ledecky would go out, race hard, just go, go, go. Now she has speed, endurance and discipline, as she showed Wednesday when she backed off world-record pace about halfway through the 800.

She also, as she proved Thursday, can bring it in a range of events, from the 200 up through distance categories. And, as she showed Wednesday, she is getting better in the 100.

In winning last year’s 200 in Barcelona, Franklin broke 1:55, going 1:54.81. Schmitt’s American record is 1:53.61, set in London in 2012. The world record is 1:52.98, which Italy’s Federica Pellegrini set in Rome at the height of the plastic-suit craze at the 2009 world championships.

Before the meet, Gemmel said he can now tell how Ledecky is swimming just by listening “to the swims,” likening it to the way a concert pianist can hear great music.

“Sometimes during practice he says that doesn’t sound like fast swimming, or that sounds like fast swimming,” Ledecky said.

He said, “I think one of Katie’s biggest growth areas over the last year is she can swim the races multiple ways. I think up until a couple years ago she was most comfortable with and only swam it real hard, going out from the start, but based upon her swims last summer in Barcelona that for various reasons we chose to swim different ways, and for the swims down in Texas, I think that’s her biggest growth area, that she can now swim back half, front half, middle half, every other lap, however we choose to swim it.

“We’ve done that before.”

And now, everyone?

For one night, no Phelps magic

Before Michael Phelps had won even the first of his 22 Olympic medals he was, in 2003, the United States men’s national champion in the 100-meters freestyle. The circle turns. It’s back to the future. Pick your metaphor as the 2014 U.S. nationals got underway in earnest Wednesday in Irvine, California, with Phelps stepping to the blocks for the finals of the 100 free.

To expect Phelps to win everything — at least right now, this soon into his comeback — is perhaps a bit too much. Phelps would naturally expect so. But when Nathan Adrian is in the race, and Adrian is not only the London 2012 Olympic 100 gold medalist but the man who since 2009 has won either or both the 50 and 100 at the national level, something’s got to give.

And it’s not just Adrian.

Anthony Ervin was in the race as well. Ervin is an Olympic gold medalist sprinter, too, the 50 champ from Sydney 2000. In the morning prelims, both Adrian and Ervin had gone faster than Phelps.

Also in the race: Jimmy Feigen, silver medalist in the 100 at last year’s world championships in Barcelona and an Olympic relay medalist.

Not to mention Matt Grevers (multiple Olympic medalist), Ryan Lochte (multiple Olympic medalist), Conor Dwyer (silver medalist, 200, Barcelona, as well as Olympic relay gold medalist); and Seth Stubblefield.

Stubblefield was the only non-Olympian in the field. How would you like to have been Seth Stubblefield Wednesday evening?

This was big-boy swimming, for sure.

This, too, is all part of the master plan now seemingly fully in motion, aiming toward Rio 2016, two years from now.

Phelps and his longtime coach, Bob Bowman, keep saying they’re just taking it bit by bit, day by day. Maybe so. Then again, the day before the U.S. nationals began, they announced a new deal with Aqua Sphere, and logic says that deal can only be enhanced if Phelps is swimming on the international stage in Brazil, right?

Right now it would seem abundantly obvious that Phelps and Bowman are in the midst of finding out if they can remake Phelps 2.0 as Phelps the way he was, at least in part, the way he was way back when.

In Irvine, he was entered in the 100 free, 100 back, 100 butterfly and 200 individual medley.

Part of this is because Phelps is now 29. It’s exceedingly unlikely he would, at least right now, put up with the wear and tear on his body it would require to, say, swim the 400 IM anymore.

Part of this is because having done everything there is to do in his other races he likely needs to challenge himself in different ways.

“There are always things that I still want to do and want to achieve, and that’s part of the reason why I’m still here,” he told reporters before the meet got going. “You’re not going to get what it is. You guys know me too well.”

Mel Stewart, the 1992 200 fly gold medalist who can now be found at SwimSwam.com, opined recently that without the 400 IM, “a 46-plus 100m freestyle and 49 plus 100m butterfly could be in the cards by the 2016 Olympic Games," meaning, for instance, 46-plus seconds in the 100. The world record in the 100 is currently 46.91, held by Brazil's Cesar Cielo, set at the Rome 2009 world championships.

Then again, Stewart said, let’s stay in the moment.

Stewart said he expects lifetime bests for Phelps either in Irvine or, later this summer, at the Pan Pacific championships in Australia.

This, then, is the thing about these U.S. nationals, which many are overlooking in the glare of the Phelps comeback. It is, above all, a set-up meet for the Pan Pacs and, beyond, for the 2015 world championships in Russia.

The point is not to peak in Irvine. You saw that when Katie Ledecky flirted with the world record in the women’s 800 Wednesday evening, then let off the gas before winning in 8:18.47.

The competition in Irvine is ferocious. It was evident, for instance, in the men’s 100 free, where no fewer than 32 guys went under 50 seconds in Wednesday morning’s prelims. Last year, in Indianapolis, before the off-year Barcelona worlds, there were only 17.

Even so, while racing is always racing, the deal in Irvine is to make the U.S. team and to keep one’s eye on the longer-range prize.

Before Irvine, Phelps this year had raced in only two 100 free finals — one in Santa Clara, California, in June, the other last month in Athens, Georgia.

The prelims Wednesday morning were strikingly like the Santa Clara race. There, in a time of 48.8, he finished second to Adrian. The first 50 meters Phelps swam 23.73. The second, 25.07. On Wednesday morning, Phelps went 23.98. The second 50, Phelps, as has been his pattern through the years, turned it on to go 24.79, the only guy in the field in the back half to break 25. All in: 48.77.

The only thing is, Adrian had gone 48.24. Adrian had gone out the first 50 meters in a speedy 22.63. As Adrian would say later, “I had to be out really, really fast to make sure Michael couldn’t somehow find a way to be out of my wake, to be really hurting at the very end.”

Even so, he stressed, his race strategy was hardly all Phelps: “It wasn’t just Michael. There are a lot of people who are going fast.”

In another heat, Ervin went 48.71.

In the finals, Ervin drew Lane 5, Adrian 4, Phelps 3. Lochte was all the way out there in 8, Feigen in 2.

Phelps got to the turn four-tenths faster than he did in the morning, at 23.58. But then it all fell apart. He missed the wall, didn’t execute his turn properly and struggled to the finish in 49.17 — good only for seventh.

Adrian won, in 48.31. Lochte took second, in 48.96. Feigen got third, in 48.98.

In all, a slow race, and perhaps a cause for concern going forward for the 4x100 relay, where times need to be in the 47s to be competitive. Adrian said afterward, “We know as a whole that group of eight guys is much faster than what we showed in the pool tonight.”

Phelps’ finals time was four-tenths slower than he had gone in the morning. The prelim swim would have gotten him silver behind Adrian but, you know, that’s not how it works.

“I’m really interested to see what the replay looks like because going into the wall I felt like I had set myself up for a good one just based on where I was in comparison to Nathan,” Phelps said, “and I thought I had the right distance to go into the wall and when I literally took a couple kicks and I barely passed the flags I knew there was very little chance that I was going to run anybody down.

“So it’s kind of frustrating but, you know, I never really know where we are in that race right now. I felt really good after the morning swim besides the first 50 and I felt good in the warmup pool getting ready for tonight. It just kind of stinks that I missed the first wall but it’s a part of racing and there is going to be another chance to swim that race in a couple weeks. I’m just trying to get a spot on the team and go from there.”

Lochte added, “He said he missed the turn. I saw it, because when I flipped, I looked under water and saw him. Things happen. He is going to fix it and make sure it never happens again.” 

What happened Wednesday evening matters, of course, because you can hardly remember the last time Phelps was not on the podium in a national meet. At the same time, Rio is still two years away.

Also, 2003 is a long time back. And, as Rowdy Gaines put it on the Universal Sports telecast, Phelps is “still learning.” Even the greatest Olympic swimmer of all time doesn’t just get back into the water and beat everyone, especially when everyone is so much better than they used to be — thanks in large measure to Phelps, who has inspired a generation.

As Gaines also said, “It’s going to take some time to get back into this.”

A sprint champion to want to believe in

Wouldn’t American track and field be so much better, goes the mournful refrain, if only there were a sprint champion everyone could actually believe in? Who wasn’t, you know, doped to the gills? Maybe Kendal Williams doesn’t go on to run 9.57. But now that he has won the men’s 100 at the world juniors in Eugene, Oregon, maybe it’s time, too, to celebrate the very sort of young athlete everyone says they really want — but then hardly gives more than a moment to when he does exactly what they say they’re begging for.

In Eugene, Williams defeated favorite Trayvon Bromell in the 100, running 10.21 to Bromell’s 10.28. They then teamed up — along with Jalen Miller and Trentavis Friday, the Eugene 200-meter champion — as the Americans won the 4x100 relay.

“I’ve been waiting all year for my time to come,” Williams said after the 100. “It finally came.”

First things first: of course 10.2 is not going to win anything at the Olympics. These were the juniors. Nonetheless, Kendal Williams has world-class potential. He is about a month shy of his 19th birthday, is about to start at Florida State and is already running 10.2 without lifting weights in high school.

Why no weights? Because he went to Stanton College Preparatory School, one of Jacksonville, Florida’s, most academically renowned institutions, dating to the 1860s, when it began serving the African-American community.

“Kendal went to an academic school,” said his father, Ken. adding a moment later, “They tore down the weight room to put another classroom in.”

Second, of course it’s always dangerous when it comes to the issue of performance-enhancing drugs to know absolutely, positively for sure if someone is clean. In the case of Kendal Williams every shred of evidence would suggest he is, as the old advertising saying goes, 99 and 44/100 percent clean.

Never mind the tests — and, yes, he has been tested, and the tests are clean.

It’s more, way more, than that.

“The kid I raised, the family we have, he would not even consider that,” Ken Williams said, adding, “We have instilled in him the fortitude, the character, whatever it takes to be a man of integrity. The character of a man is instilled by the standards he sets for himself. I love that and I tell that to him all the time.”

Asked how certain he was that Kendall Williams was clean, his coach, James May, said, “I’m 100 percent sure. There are very few kids I can say that about. Mostly god did a remarkable job.”

“He is a good, wholesome young man,” said Terry Isley, who is now a first officer for American Airlines, used to fly for the U.S. Navy — serving, all in, for 27 years — and is a family friend, adding, “The household he comes from is the same cloth. His dad and mom. He has an older brother. The older brother dated the same girl for three or four years before he married her. How often does that happen? I would be shocked. You can never say never. But what I see and know of him, I don’t see that being a problem.”

Kendal Williams’ older brother, Ken, 26, and his wife, Kimberly, are expecting their first child, a boy, in November.

His dad, Ken, and mom, also named Kimberly, have been together for 29 years. They are high school sweethearts.  He is an AT&T project manager; she is an AT&T finance manager.

Ken Williams’ mother -- that is, Kendal Williams' grandmother -- passed away three years ago; Kendal's grandparents had been married for 58 years.

Ken William’s parents met in college at Florida A&M. Kimberly Williams’ parents met in college at Bethune-Cookman.

Both of Kendal Williams’ grandfathers are graduates of Stanton Prep.

“My wife and I both came from two-parent homes and they came from two-parent homes. That’s been important to us,” Ken Williams said. “That’s been important to us, to raise our kids and give them that foundation. You don’t always see that these days.

“There’s a lot to be said for two parents in the home. Hopefully, kids will understand that marriage is you both have to give 100 percent all the time, and it’s work. I’d like to think we helped guide [Kendal] into the person he will become for the next four years.”

Athletic talent runs through the extended family. James Loney, who now plays for the Tampa Bay Rays, is a cousin.

Kendal Williams’ speed was obvious way back. In eighth grade, Isley’s son, Merrick, and Kendal ran a 100; halfway, Merrick was perhaps three or four meters ahead; by the finish, Kendal was three or four meters up.

“A lot of guys can run. But I had never seen anything like that,” said Isley, who played college football. “He ran 10.90-something, 10.92. That wasn’t what impressed me. It was his top-end speed. My wife said, ‘You can still outrun him.’ I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘His top-end speed is world-class.’ The people around me laughed. I said, ‘I know what I am saying.’ “

May happened to be at the meet that day. To be on May’s team would be a commitment for the Williams family — a 40-mile drive.

“To show you the athleticism, the first time I showed [Kendal] how to long jump, he went 21 feet,” May said. This was March of Kendal's eighth-grade year, he said.

With Kendal, Isley and all of six other kids, May’s team would later go on to win the middle-school state meet.

“I’m always suspect of major leaps,” May said, meaning in times, which is why Kendal Williams’ progressions are further evidence of regular development.

In the 100, for instance, the progressions read like this: 2011 10.46, 2012 10.37, 2013 10.18, 2014 a personal-best 10.21. The 2012 and 2013 times were both wind-aided, both readings slightly above the allowable 2.0 meters per second.

The winning time in Eugene was run into a slight headwind, 0.6 meters per second. No question it is the real deal.

“Most sprinters run better in heat. He ran better in cool weather. He ran a PR in that weather,” May said.

You know what else? After Kendal Williams won the 100 in Eugene, May said, “He said thank you.”

Sustainability? Legacy? LA 1984 revisited

No one likes I-told-you-so’s, and if there is a good lord up above, he — or she — knows full well that others find it tiresome, indeed, to hear Americans boasting about anything. So this is not — repeat, not — that column. There’s no point. At the same time, it’s just plain dumb to ignore reality. So, now, with International Olympic Committee extolling a renewed commitment to “sustainability” and “legacy,” and with the true believers this week celebrating the 30th anniversary of the 1984 Games that changed everything, it’s entirely reasonable to look anew at those Los Angeles Olympics. Because they didn’t just save the modern Olympic movement — they set the standard for sustainability and legacy, too.

Also this: if in more recent Olympic bid campaigns, U.S. efforts have gotten knocked down in part because American cities are different — the whole notion of 50 states means the federal government itself won’t underwrite a bid the way national governments in other countries will — it’s only fair now to note for the record that the LA Games, while often touted as privately run, absolutely included significant public monies.

It’s easy, perhaps even understandable, for others elsewhere to want to beat up on the United States, the world’s only superpower.

However, when it comes to the Olympics, and issues of sustainability, legacy and public-private partnership, the question — as the historical record proves without a shadow of a doubt — is, why the knock on the USA?

You’d think the American way would be celebrated as a model.

The planning that went into the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games, for instance, was always meant to transform the U.S. into a winter-sports nation — with major universities in and around town and world-class venues just up Interstate 80 in Park City, Deer Valley and a few minutes beyond in Soldier Hollow. The proof has come in the medals count in Vancouver and Sochi.

If in Olympic circles no one much likes to talk loudly about Atlanta — the main Olympic Stadium, when all is said and done in two years, will have served as the home for the baseball Braves for nearly 20 years. There's a legitimate argument about whether 20 years is enough -- but compare 20 years of day-in, day-out baseball to, for instance, the Bird's Nest in Beijing or the Olympic Stadium in Athens.

And then, of course, there is Los Angeles — where on Monday evening, at the LA84 Foundation grounds, they held a low-key party to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the opening ceremony.

Just as he did on July 28, 1984, Rafer Johnson carried the torch. This time, though, it wasn’t up the steeply angled staircase that had been built at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It was only a few easy, level steps.

“Tonight was fantastic,” Johnson said as he posed for photos with Peter Ueberroth, who oversaw those 1984 Games. “No stairs.”

The gymnast Mary Lou Retton was on hand. The hurdler Edwin Moses. Dozens more athletes from 1984. Anita DeFrantz, the senior IOC member to the United States and the foundation president, herself a bronze medalist from the 1976 Montreal Games.

Even Sammy Lee, the gold medal-winning diver from 1948 and 1952.

It was a celebration — and there was, upon reflection, much to celebrate.

The foundation was created with 40 percent of the $232.5 million 1984 surplus.

Since 1985, the foundation has invested $220 million into Southern California youth sports. This includes $103.3 million in direct grants, plus spending on foundation-initiated youth sports programs, coaching education, research projects, youth sports conferences.

The foundation has developed a major sports library and digital collection, and has published reports on, among other topics, the prevention of ACL injuries, the educational benefits of youth sports, increasing Latina sports participation and tackling in youth football.

The foundation’s grants have served three million young people (under age 17). Some 1,100 organizations have received grants. About 80,000 youth sports coaches have been trained.

Simply put, is there another institution in the world, anywhere, that has done anything like the LA84 Foundation?

Remarkably, it has done even more — its definition of “legacy” incredibly expansive.

LA84 has made over $20 million in infrastructure grants. That investment, in turn, has leveraged another $100 million from other funders. That money has meant nearly 100 facilities have been refurbished or built from the ground up.

Among the most notable projects: the John Argue Swim Stadium at Exposition Park across from the University of Southern California, in which the 1932 Olympic Swim Stadium was refurbished, and the construction of the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center in Pasadena, California.

LA84 has an ongoing partnership with the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation. To date, 30 baseball fields have been built.

That $232.5 million figure has long been a source of fascination, if not more.

In 1978, Los Angeles voters, by a wide margin, voted against public funding for the Games. And as the official report of the 1984 Games notes, the federal government turned down a $200 million grant request from the LA84 organizing committee in the "early" planning stages.

Even so, there absolutely was public spending on the Games.

For instance:

-- The federal government spent $30 to $35 million for security; other federal agencies projected another $38 million in spending, which was accounted for through additional appropriations or by reduced spending in non-Olympic areas. The LA84 organizing committee budgets do not account for these federal funds.

-- The state of California would claim $14.3 million in unreimbursed Olympic costs but only $3.6 million represented a special appropriation.

-- The organizing committee paid for policing in Los Angeles and other Southern California cities.

Overall, the $232.5 million surplus is, as it should be, strictly a reflection of the organizing committee's budget. Even so, if you were to figure in federal, state and local spending, there's still no question the organizing committee would have finished the 1984 Olympics way into the black.

Finally, this:

On November 1, 1984, the LA Times published a story whose headline declared, “Giant Olympic Surplus Spills Over Into Anger.” At that point, the surplus was being estimated at perhaps $150 million — the $232.5 million figure would not yet be known — and the city attorney in Fullerton, California, was bemoaning the money it had paid out to hold the Olympic team handball events at the Cal State campus there.

It would be a fascinating measure of legacy, indeed, to weigh the costs to taxpayers in or before 1984 against LA84 Foundation grants to public entities in the 30 years since.

Yang Ho Cho back atop Pyeongchang 2018

In certain circles in South Korea, such things as duty, responsibility, nation and family truly do matter, and matter a great deal. A promise is a promise, and a promise must be kept.  

Of course, these things can matter everywhere. All the same, this explains why on Thursday in Seoul, Yang Ho Cho — one of the world’s foremost businessmen, a pivotal figure in a leading Korean family, an advocate for his country — was elected president of the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic Games organizing committee.

Three years ago, Cho led the winning Pyeongchang 2018 bid. Since then, Jin Sun Kim, the former governor of Gangwon province, where Pyeongchang is located, had served as the organizing committee president.

Kim resigned unexpectedly last week, saying new leadership was needed.

As Gangwon governor, Kim led Pyeongchang’s bids for the 2010 and 2014 Winter Games, which went to Vancouver and Sochi. He served as a special ambassador for the 2018 bid.

The timing and motive behind Kim’s resignation remain unclear; his second term as president was not due to end until October, 2015. No major concerns had been expressed about readiness or preparations for the Pyeongchang Olympics, the first Winter Games to be held in Korea.

Speculation has mounted that Kim resigned under pressure amid concerns over leadership issues, lags in producing needed domestic sponsorship contracts and, perhaps, construction delays.

The South Korean government audit agency announced last week it had conducted a special, weeks-long inquiry into the organizing committee, assessing financing and management. Results are expected within three months.

Cho was the obvious choice to replace Kim.

After all, not only had Cho overseen the 2011 campaign for 2018, it was the way he did it.

Simply put, Cho did a masterful job of orchestrating various constituencies — the levels of government, the sponsors and other business interests, the Korean Olympic Committee and more — as Pyeongchang, with 63 votes, roared to a massive first-round victory over Munich and Annecy, France.

Cho, now 65, is a vice-president of the Korean Olympic Committee. He has been president of the Korea Table Tennis Association since 2008, vice-president of the Asian Table Tennis Union since 2009.

In his business life, he is chairman of Korean Air Lines Co., the country’s largest carrier. The airline’s biggest shareholder is the family-owned Hanjin Group, one of Korea’s most significant conglomerates.

Cho is a graduate of the University of Southern California and Korean Air is in the midst of building what will be a $1-billion, 73-story hotel, office and retail complex — the largest building west of the Mississippi River — in downtown LA. The center, called the Wilshire Grand, is due to open in 2017.

Which leads to a little Korean history, and some perspective and context into — and maybe understanding of — Thursday’s transition.

Though Cho was the obvious choice, initially he did not want the job. He even said so. His business responsibilities — which, in his case, meant his family responsibilities as well — weighed heavily. Beyond the airline and the Wilshire Grand, there was a shipping business, and more.

At the same time, in 2011, at the IOC session in Durban, South Africa, Cho had made a promise to the members of the International Olympic Committee that the 2018 Games would be rock-solid. He had told them that day, "Our vision is clear and it is unique."

As word of Kim’s resignation got around the world, messages came into Cho from the members — saying, in essence, you are the one we know and trust.

Kun Hee Lee, chairman of Samsung since 1987 and an IOC member since 1996, has been ill; Dae Sung Moon, an IOC athlete member since 2008, has been caught up in plagiarism allegations over his doctoral thesis.

If not Cho, who? In Korea, the IOC needs a steady go-between.

With Cho, as those in the Olympic sphere as well as government and the business communities knew, any issues with leadership as well as sponsorship would likely dissipate, and quickly.

If indeed there are venue or construction concerns — because Cho oversaw the bid, he would not have to be brought up to speed with those, either.

So there was the matter of that promise.

And then there was this.

It was 45 years ago that the Korean government asked Choong Hoon Cho, founder of the Hanjin Group, to take over a debt-driven, state-owned Korean Air Lines. Mr. Cho turned down the proposal. Not just once. Twice. He thought it was a sinking ship. Then, though, the president of the country, Chung Hee Park, asked Mr. Cho directly to take over the airline. Mr. Cho reconsidered, accepting out of what would later be thought of — duly recorded in the history books — as devotion to the country through transportation.

Now the Korean government turned to the son, Yang Ho Cho, to take over the 2018 Pyeongchang organizing committee. At first, in an echo of the years gone by, he said no. The government considered its options. It came back to him.

This second time, Cho said yes. Out of devotion to the country through sports.

“I feel heavy responsibility,” Cho told reporters after the election, held at the organizing committee’s 10th general assembly, in downtown Seoul.

According to Associated Press, he also said, “I’ll do my best to achieve a successful hosting of the Olympics based on my experience as the bid committee chairman.”

'Anything is possible': Williams wins juniors 100

EUGENE, Oregon — Two days ago, after Universal Sports posted onto Twitter a shot of a skinny Usain Bolt racing at the IAAF world junior championships — before a home crowd in Kingston, Jamaica, in 2002 — he told his 3.4 million-plus followers, “Still the greatest moment of my life.” This from a guy who, of course, has gone on to win six Olympic individual and relay medals as well as eight world titles and who holds the world record in the 200 meters, 19.19 seconds, and the 100, 9.58.

For social media purposes this week, meanwhile, that wasn’t all. Bolt followed up on Instagram by proclaiming, “It’s been a journey and a half from world juniors to now,” adding the hashtags, “anything is possible,” and “keep believing.”

On Wednesday here at Hayward Field, Trayvon Bromell was expected to win the men’s 100 meters. He had set the world junior record earlier this year on the very same track. Instead, in one of those upsets that makes track and field eminently watchable, another American, Kendal Williams, won, proof that, as Bolt said, anything is possible.

Williams crossed in 10.21 seconds, Bromell in 10.28.

Yoshihide Kiryu of Japan took third, in 10.34

“I’ve been waiting all year for my time to shine,” Williams said later. “It finally came.”

The gold is the first for the United States at these world juniors.

It is also the first men’s 100-meter gold in the world juniors in 10 years, since Ivory Williams’ 10.29 in Grosseto, Italy. Over history, it made for the fourth time a U.S. male has won gold in the 100 at the world juniors.

The women’s 100 also produced a fascinating winner — Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith, who crushed the field with an explosive start and a take-no-prisoners style that makes for great theater down the lanes. She won in 11.23.

Afterward, asked to explain her victory, she said, “I can’t let myself slack.”

Fascinatingly, there were no Jamaicans — men’s or women’s — in either the men’s or women’s 100 final.

The focus heading into the meet had been all about Bromell. He had even been one of the invited athletes at the IAAF pre-meet news conference, and understandably.

On this same Hayward track, at the NCAA championships in June, he ran the 100 in 9.97, the first junior to run under 10 seconds.

The thing is, it’s difficult to know whether junior performances are a predictor of much of anything.

At those 2002 juniors, Bolt won the 200, in 20.61. He didn’t run the 100. Here are your top three finishers in that 100: Darrel Brown and Marc Burns, both of Trinidad and Tobago, and American Willie Hordge.

Bolt was just 15 at that race, about a month shy of 16.

Bromell turned 19 two weeks ago. The grind of a long season was wearing on him. But at that news conference he tried to make like, not.

He said, “Going back to getting my maintenance done on my body, I feel like I can still run fast. I don’t feel like I’m going to run any slower. I feel like my heart won’t let me. So we shall see if history will be made again.”

Here is the thing about history and track and field. It can often turn on a combination of weather and fate. When they combine in your favor, it’s all good. When it’s not that way — that’s why they run the races.

For instance, in May, at the Big 12 championships in Lubbock, Texas, when Bromell ran a 9.77 for 100 meters, that was very, very fast.

Then again, that day he had the wind at his back. The weather, you know. The wind was measured at 4.2 meters per second, which is way, way more than the 2.0 allowed under the rules of track and field.

That race brought Bromell lots and lots of attention.

In fact, for entertainment purposes only, history buffs might want to note that Carl Lewis — whose fastest legal time was a 9.86, in Tokyo in 1991 — ran 9.78 with an even stronger 5.2 wind at his back in Indianapolis in 1988.

So Bromell, at 19, is already faster on a windy day than Carl Lewis.

This is why Bromell got — and is getting, especially from track geeks — lots of attention.

When he ran 9.97 at the NCAAs in June — the wind that day at his back was 1.8, legal but very close — he took four-hundredths of a second off the former world junior record, which he had jointly held with Trinidad's Brown.

American Jeff Demps and Japan’s Kiryu also ran 10.01 but their times were never ratified as world junior records.

Meanwhile, back in Florida, in May, Williams won the state titles in both the 100- and 200-meter dashes, becoming just the third athlete in state history to win four straight in the 200 (one of whom was Houston McTear in the 1970s). Williams won the 100 in 10.33, the 200 in 20.96. But who noticed outside of a few locals and the coaches at Florida State, where he’s headed?

This week in Eugene, Bromell opened Tuesday with a 10.13. That was a tenth of a second better than anyone in the field, which was what most people here saw.

But not if you were paying close attention: Williams was next, in a personal-best 10.23.

Cejhae Greene of Antigua went 10.27. No one else was under 10.3.

On Wednesday morning, the rain — the weather again — came down hard. The sequence here:  mid-day Tuesday in the sun, then semis and finals Wednesday evening on a soggy track.

“It it was a hot day, you probably would have seen three people go under 10 seconds, man,” Bromell would say later.

It was not hot. It was decidedly cool, sweatshirt weather, maybe more. A couple ladies were seen Wednesday evening eating popcorn under the Hayward stands wrapped in blankets. One volunteer, displaying awesome local knowledge for summer in Oregon, opted for a black down jacket. It was zipped up.

In the semifinal, Bromell again topped the field, now in 10.29, and in a still wind. He looked sluggish.

And the field crept closer, Levi Cadogan of Barbados in that same semifinal just two-hundredths back, Ojie Edoburun of Britain five-hundredths behind.

In his semi, Williams, ran an easy 10.49 to win.

In the final, Bromell actually got off to a great start, a reaction time of 0.121 off the gun, fastest in the field, Williams going 0.149.

But Bromell just didn’t have more, and by halfway down, it was clear Williams would take the race.

For Williams, that 10.21 was, again, a new personal best. Anything is possible. Keep believing.

“Execution was, I think, priority No. 2 behind mentally staying in the game,” Williams said later. “Not letting anything or anybody else mess with your mojo.”

He also said, “At the end of the day, I’m happy for Trayvon. He has accomplished a lot. He’s a humble kid. I like him. But at the end of the day, I still had to focus on what I had to do. I can’t run Trayvon Bromell’s race better than Trayvon Bromell can do. I had to go out there and run Kendall Williams’ race.”

Bromell said, “I seen the whole race when I came up. I seen Kendall right beside me. He had great knee lift. He was executing well. I was like, man, it’s his time to shine. I’ve had a great run this year. I’m just glad I got through the season healthy. It’s a blessing for him and I’m happy for him.”

He also said, and though these are the juniors these are words of wisdom from someone who is only 19, “You can’t run a fast race every time. You can’t PR every time.”

LA 2024's new bid team, many rivers to cross

EUGENE, Oregon -- When the four American cities still in the would-be race for the 2024 Summer Olympics head to Colorado Springs, Colorado, for a U.S. Olympic Committee workshop later this week, the Los Angeles bid will have a new face. Casey Wasserman, 40, one of Southern California’s leading businessmen, has over the past few weeks quietly — in keeping with his style — assumed leadership of the bid.

Wasserman’s arrival onto the public Olympic stage, in tandem with 43-year-old Mayor Eric Garcetti, is a strong signal on many levels, the emergence of a new generation of Los Angeles leadership that for 2024 could bring new energy and new thinking, one that can obviously pay homage to the power of the 1984 Games but would no longer be beholden to them.

The mayor, who is fluent in Spanish, keeps a 1984 torch in his downtown office.

At the same time, this must be emphasized: strong signals guarantee no one and no city anything.

San Francisco, Boston and Washington already had strong business leaders aligned with their bids, San Francisco with Giants president and chief executive officer Larry Baer, Boston with construction magnate John Fish, Washington with financier and philanthropist Russ Ramsey.

Moreover, it’s far from clear the USOC is even going to launch an American bid.

USOC chairman Larry Probst and chief executive Scott Blackmun have said many times they are on a holding pattern through 2014, waiting until the International Olympic Committee and president Thomas Bach complete their review and potentially far-reaching reform process, dubbed "Olympic Agenda 2020."

An all-members IOC assembly has been called for Monaco in early December. The USOC is due to make a 2024 go-or-no-go decision in early 2015. The IOC will pick a 2024 city in 2017.

The list of potential international contenders is fluid, indeed. Paris, Berlin, Doha and others routinely surface on most rumor lists.

Making matters more complicated for Los Angeles, everyone tied to the USOC process is well aware that LA played host to the 1932 and 1984 Summer Games and, moreover, that Anita DeFrantz is the senior IOC member to the United States, with offices at the LA 84 Foundation, just west of the University of Southern California, and that Jim Easton, another IOC member, has a place near UCLA. Their IOC membership makes them USOC board members as well.

Thus, the USOC has gone out of its way — as board minutes make explicitly clear — to kick DeFrantz and Easton out of the room whenever 2024 discussions come up.

Los Angeles sought the 2016 Games, losing out to Chicago, which of course ended up coming up way short in October, 2009, to Rio de Janeiro.

The USOC stayed out of the 2020 contest, which went last September to Tokyo, Probst and Blackmun intent on building relationships rather than running through another expensive bid cycle.

Recent LA Olympic strategies have been overseen by Barry Sanders, now a retired lawyer who since 2002 has been chairman of what is called the Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games.

In Los Angeles, the figurative passing of the torch, if you will, could hardly seem more symbolic: Wasserman is off Thursday to Colorado even as final preparations are being made for a party next Monday, at the stately LA 84 Foundation grounds, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the 1984 Games. Peter Ueberroth, who ran those LA Games and then served as USOC chairman from 2004 to 2008, which included the 2005 campaign that saw New York bid, losing to London for the 2012 Games, is expected at the party.

Ueberroth, since stepping down from the USOC post, has discretely stayed out of the Olympic spotlight.

Meanwhile, in the fabric of civic life in Los Angeles, there is always a connection to be found to the Olympics and to 1984.

For Wasserman, the connections are many and layered. He has been powerfully tied his entire life to the city, business, the media, sports and the Olympic scene. Everyone in Los Angeles who mattered, it seemed, knew Casey’s grandfather, Lew, of MCA fame; one of Lew’s closest friends was Paul Ziffren, one of the big-time lawyers in town who helped bring the 1984 Games to LA; Casey is married to Paul’s granddaughter.

Casey Wasserman is chairman and chief executive of Wasserman Media Group, the company he founded 12 years ago. Its now-global practice ranges across fields as diverse as athlete management, corporate consulting, sponsorships, media rights and corporate consulting.

As just one example of the company’s got-done list: in 2011, it brokered naming rights to MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, site of the 2014 Super Bowl, in a 25-year arrangement for a reported $400 million, among the biggest stadium-rights deals in U.S. sports.

Wasserman is also president and CEO of an active private family charitable trust, the Wasserman Foundation; among other boards, he is also a trustee of the William J. Clinton Foundation.

In the Olympic sphere, relationships matter, and Wasserman’s Rolodex — to use a term that might have been more celebrated in 1984 — is formidable.

With disclosure of what was afoot in Los Angeles circulating this week among the in-the-know here in Eugene at the 2014 world juniors, speculation immediately ignited about the possibility of a track and field world championships -- 2021? 2023? -- at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

What, if anything, that might mean for Eugene's 2019 world championships bid -- it's up against Doha and Barcelona in a contest to be decided this fall -- is entirely uncertain.

Earlier this year, USA Track and Field announced LA would play host to the men's and women's U.S. marathon Trials for the 2016 U.S. Olympic team, on Feb. 13, 2016.

Of course, at this point all this is -- to reiterate -- sheer conjecture. To quote from the ballad the great Jimmy Cliff wrote in 1969: many rivers to cross.

"Casey Wasserman is one of our city's most creative and innovative business leaders, and he has built one of the world's leading sports companies here in LA because our city is the worldwide capital of the sports industry," Garcetti said. “And Casey is at the heart of thoughtful, focused philanthropy, determined to make our city even greater.

“It is only natural that Casey is my partner in leading LA's efforts to explore an American bid for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. I look forward to working closely with him."

For his part, Wasserman said, “The USOC is committed to putting forward the best of our U.S. cities, so it is a real privilege to join forces with Mayor Garcetti to steer Los Angeles’ bid for the 2024 Olympics and Paralympics. I hope our ideas, partnership and involvement can contribute to the committee’s greater mission.”

Eugene, beyond the 2014 world juniors?

EUGENE, Oregon — First and foremost, Eugene is not TrackTown USA. That is an excellent bit of marketing. But everything is relative. This is a college town, and as track's worldwide governing body, the IAAF, comes to the United States for the first time in more than 20 years for a championship of any sort, it must be said, like it or not, this is most appropriately CollegeFootballTown USA. Anybody who tells you anything else simply picked a bad week to stop sniffing whatever might be in the air by the 7-Eleven at the corner of Franklin and Patterson.

Just a couple blocks away from that 7-Eleven, Hayward Field, site of the IAAF world juniors, which get underway Tuesday, is — to use the preferred term — venerable, the fans said to be knowledgeable.

Even so, the local football palace, Autzen Stadium, where the IAAF held a party Monday night, is insane on a college football Saturday. Let us recap the past few seasons: 2010 Rose Bowl, 2011 BCS championship game, 2012 Rose Bowl victors, 2013 Fiesta Bowl winners.

It’s Nike money that helped bring the 2014 world juniors here. That’s fine. You want to see what Nike money can really do?

Check out the Hatfield-Dowlin complex, the 145,000-square foot, six-story black steel and glass football "performance facility" that opened here last year. Where to begin? The special wood floors in the weight room, the individually ventilated lockers to eliminate odors, the infection-free surfaces, the barber shop, specially designated workspaces for pro scouts as well as the dogs of the press, foosball tables in the players’ lounge that were made in Barcelona, the same sound engineering in the lobby that is used at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and on and on and on.

Even the Eugene Register-Guard, the local newspaper, knows what’s what. Monday’s edition displayed a feature on sprinter Kaylin Whitney while helpfully offering a sidebar on 10 Americans to watch at the world juniors.

Even so, on that Register-Guard website's sport section's drop-down menu, you can readily see that track -- and kudos to the paper for even mentioning track -- is sixth on its priority list. After "local," which figures, what dominates? "Oregon Ducks football." Under blogs, what's first? "Oregon football."

Here is the dilemma:

There is no TrackTown USA.

Not New York, not Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, Denver, Phoenix, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Seattle, Miami, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Boston, Washington, nowhere. Not Las Vegas. Not nothing.

If there were a TrackTown, there would have been a world championships here in the United States, the big deal itself, already.

The last major IAAF event in the United States took place in 1992, the cross-country championships in Boston. The world indoors were in 1987, in Indianapolis. The IAAF World Race Walking Cup was held in the United States twice, in New York in 1987 and San Jose in 1991.

Lamine Diack, who has been president of the IAAF for nearly 15 years, has said many, many times that he wished there could be a way to get it done in the States.

But how? What venue? Hayward seats 20,000-ish, max; that is not major league. How many hotel rooms are there in Eugene? Answer: not anywhere near enough. And have you tried to get to Eugene? It’s a long way from anywhere — 20-hours plus from Europe, as those on the IAAF’s ruling Council learned while slogging Sunday through jet lag and their meetings at the Valley River Inn.

Vin Lananna, who deserves a lot of credit for getting the world indoors to Portland in 2016 and is trying diligently to bring the world championships to Eugene in 2019, now calls Hayward Field the “Carnegie Hall of track and field.” He likens it to Augusta National and Wimbledon, trying to play it up as a destination, a place where, as he said at Monday’s news conference, “special things happen,” like Ashton Eaton’s 2012 world record in the decathlon.

Again, excellent branding.

Eugene as a "destination" is an intriguing concept. There's now a Five Guys burger place here. That's a positive. Also, the Starbucks by the P.F. Chang's at the Oakway complex now features that new Clover brewing system, and you don't find that everywhere. So -- whoo! If for some reason you don't like that Starbucks, there's literally another Starbucks across the street. Which is, you know, nice. Eugene!

Make no mistake: these world juniors are surely an event unto themselves, but they are here to serve as the trial run for those 2019 worlds. Eugene is bidding against Doha and Barcelona. The IAAF will choose the winner later this year.

Diack said at Monday’s news conference that the world juniors mark “an important moment for the future of track and field” in the United States.

Asked later how important a successful world juniors would be for the Eugene 2019 bid, he answered, “Let us see the six days,” a reference to how long the meet goes.

“That’s a lot of pressure, President Diack,” Lananna said with a laugh.

Again, give Lananna credit. Consider the sequencing: Beijing 2015. London 2017. 2019 -- another great world capital for the IAAF like ... Eugene?!

Perhaps, though, Eugene does win for 2019.

Nike money can do a lot of things — even perhaps cozy up in places alongside adidas money, with which the IAAF has long been familiar. Now that Nike and USA Track & Field are in business together until 2040, who knows how the world might change? Wouldn’t Phil Knight want to see the championships in the United States before time claims its inevitable reward? Perhaps there are other factors and strategies at work, political or otherwise, that will ultimately see Eugene emerge the victor.

Then again, if it’s just the ability to use money to get projects done — hello, Doha? The Qatari capital finished runner-up to London for the 2017 worlds. It’s probable 2019 would be a far-better time for Doha than 2021, which would be the year before the soccer World Cup and thus likely too frenetic. And Doha is now seriously in the business of staging world championships for any number of federations; the world short-course swim championships will be there this December, for instance.

A group representing Doha perched over the weekend in the lobby of the Valley River Inn, as the Council was meeting.

Look, it’s bid season, and that is all well and good.

It’s a good idea, meanwhile, to consider timing and context when examining what people say. Here, then, are two 2011 quotes from the senior vice president of the IAAF, Bob Hersh, who happens to be an American, when there was no U.S. bid underway, and none was envisioned, and perhaps this speaks to the idea of TrackTown USA, or any such thing.

Citing stadiums in Austin, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; and Seattle, Hersh said, “You look at large stadiums in cities that are big enough to host it,” meaning a world championships, "and they’ve removed the tracks.”

In that same story, he said, referring to the United States, “We just don’t have the wherewithal, starting with the fact that there is no stadium that could accommodate it.”

This, too, from Lananna, asked Monday to describe how Eugene got the world juniors: “It has long been a dream to host one of these world championships. We looked at what made the most sense on a college campus.”

Which this event does.

Beyond that?

There's a football model in the US -- now, soccer?

OK, soccer freaks. Now that the 2014 FIFA World Cup is over, it's back to reality. Like it or not, this is the fact: in the United States, football, Peyton Manning-style, is king. A release issued Wednesday from the National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame underscores the truth, and shows just how far the United States has to go before it can truly compete on the international stage with the likes of Germany, winners of soccer’s big prize.

It’s not so much that the United States is bad in soccer. It’s not. It’s just that it’s not good — or, to be more precise, good enough.The difference is thoroughly evident in the way in the way the two countries approach their national sports.

Seven new college football teams will take the field this upcoming season, according to the release, increasing the number of schools across all NCAA divisions and the NAIA offering football to 767, an all-time high.

Welcome, Arizona Christian University (go Firestorm!), The College of Idaho, George Fox University, Limestone College, Missouri Baptist University, Paine College and Southeastern University.

For the geographically minded: George Fox is in Oregon, Limestone in South Carolina, Paine in Georgia, Southeastern — yes — in Florida.

Since 1978, when the NCAA changed its method for keeping attendance, the number of schools playing NCAA football has gone from 484 to 657, or an average of 4.9 schools per year. That includes FBS, FCS, Division II and Division III.

Over the years 2011-13, 25 programs have been added at NCAA or NAIA schools.

The release quoted NFF chairman Archie Manning — the former NFL star who has had a second act as celebrity dad to both Peyton and younger brother Eli, both Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks — as saying that more than one million high school students play football, and that 70,000 play college ball.

It's clear that in the United States young men see in football incredible opportunity, economic and otherwise. This is why in vast numbers they prefer football to soccer. To complete the syllogism, this is why soccer has such an uphill road in the United States.

In the United States, football — starting in high school, perhaps even earlier — is a year-round venture, everything from seven-on-seven summer camps to “Friday Night Lights” and everything that goes with it to the big-time of playing college ball in front of 100,000 or more people. And then, of course, there’s the NFL.

Football holds a special status in the United States. “It’s almost a religion here,” Paine athletics director Tim Duncan said in the NFF release, meaning in the South.

How is soccer supposed to compete?

How, too, is American soccer supposed to compete with what is going on in Germany — where a standardized nationalized program starts teaching the same skills to 6-year-olds everywhere, not just from Munich to Hamburg to Berlin but in every little village. By the time boys are 8, scouts are on the lookout for the ones good enough for club teams.

The German program got started after a humiliating performance in the European 2000 championships. It took 14 years — yes, there was that 2006 World Cup semifinal — to ultimately prove itself. And now the system is in place for years to come.

If you want to read all about the German program, the Guardian, the British newspaper, wrote an excellent feature in May, 2013, all about it.

Without a similar transformation, the United States is, most experts agree, likely stuck where it is for years to come in international soccer.

Such a transformation, however, is going to take time. That’s why Jürgen Klinsmann was brought on for more than just this 2014 World Cup and why he insisted he be named not just the U.S. coach but technical director.

Consider the German team that won in Brazil: Thomas Müller, Mesut Özil, André Schürrle, Mario Götze (who scored the decisive goal against Argentina), and more — these guys are all in their young  or mid-20s.

And it has all been building, like a train coming down the tracks. You could see it in 2009, in Sweden, when the Germans beat England, 4-0, to win their first Euro under-21 championship, Özil setting up two goals and scoring another. Six of the players on that 2009 team played key roles in Brazil 2014.

One of the players on that German team, Fabian Johnson, who has a German mother and an American father, switched to the United States in 2011; he played in all four games in Brazil for the United States.

Much as Klinsmann might try, he can’t field an entire team made up of German-Americans.

Long term, the only way the American team is going to get better is by doing it the American way — just the way the Germans got better by doing it the German way.

It’s so obvious that in Europe there’s a club system and in the United States the focus has traditionally been the university.

And yet men’s college soccer is at such a disadvantage when it comes to the big sell.

If the game wants to get bigger in the United States, it has to take advantage of what it has.

Currently, a men’s Division I soccer team is capped at 9.9 scholarships per school. Consider: Michigan had to spread those 9.9 scholarships around the 25 players on its 2013 roster. Stanford, 27. Consider further: Alabama doesn’t even field a men’s varsity soccer team.

Each school, of course, had the maximum total of 85 football scholarships.

If you are a young man with physical talent, and you want to go to a school like Michigan, Stanford or Alabama, and there are abundant reasons to consider any of the three, would you be more likely while in high school to lean toward soccer or football?

Archie Manning notes that 70,000 young men play college football. The stats say 37,240 played college soccer in 2013. That’s a ratio of nearly 2 to 1.

If you dig deeper, moreover, of the 37,240, only 5,691 played Division 1 soccer.

The majority, 11,416, played at the Division III level.

Meaning no disrespect to these young men, because they are out their training, sweating and giving of their time and commitment — but the issue here is not their dedication. That’s a given.

The issue here is if and how the United States is ever going to be a world-class player like Germany. And it is not likely to get there with Division III talent.

You want Americans to compete for real in soccer? Start with the 6-year-olds. Meanwhile, figure out how to fully fund soccer scholarships at the very best schools, and don’t get all hung up on Title IX issues, because if you really want to get good at soccer, this is going to take serious resource and the very best schools are where the very best talent goes. Then keep that talent here in MLS and pay them like honest professionals. Give the whole thing 10 to 15 years, like the Germans.

Then you won’t have to depend on Tim Howard to make 16 saves, and his mother to say he should have made 17.

Until then, soccer freaks, consider this:

Duncan, the Paine athletic director, said the school added 150 student-athletes in the year after it announced it was adding football, increasing enrollment by 11 percent at the historically black college.

Already they have 28 football scholarships — above the conference average of 25.

Easy math: that’s already roughly three times the number of soccer scholarships at a Division I school. That equals opportunity.

Then there’s the University of Texas of the Permian Basin, in Odessa, home of “Friday Night Lights.” In the planning stages of adding football, the university must raise $9.5 million by the end of 2014, and appears to be on track. “We’re fully planning on being a successful football team,” university president W. David Watts said, the team intending to start playing in the 2016 season.

This is it exactly. If there's $9.5 million for football in Odessa, and you want soccer to succeed in the United States for real -- this is how you make it happen. You have to step it up. In Odessa and everywhere. You make soccer the priority that football is. It's that simple.

Along those lines:

On Tuesday, Jimmy Graham of the New Orleans Saints signed a four-year, $40-million contract that makes him the highest-paid tight end in the NFL.

Every teen boy with athletic talent can do that kind of math, and then logic says he is bound to ask this easy question that is very, very hard for every reasonable-thinking person looking at the opportunity upside to answer:

Soccer — why me?