JUST WHEN YOU'RE SURE there are certain things you're never going to see in the world of sports, along comes the news that Henry Marsh has been suspended for two years on drug charges.
It's not somebody with the same name. It's that Henry Marsh, the Mormon lawyer from Salt Lake City.He's the one The Athletics Congress is sending on this two-year mission to nowhere.
Henry Marsh joining Ben Johnson and all those weight-lifters from Bulgaria on the drughouse wall of shame is as likely as Mother Theresa joining the Rockettes.
Other, more likely headlines from the world of track & field would have been:
"Hitler's Diary Says Jesse Owens His Alltime Favorite."
"Rosie Ruiz Named TrackWoman of the Decade."
Henry Marsh, born in Texas, raised in Honolulu, schooled collegiately in Utah and Oregon, has spent the majority of his adult life chasing the invisible demons that lurk on the track, bucking long odds, and Kenyans, to assume a position as one of the greatest runners in the history of the steeplechase, a 3,000-meter obstacle-course of an event that calls for speed, skill, stamina and a cutthroat attitude, often at the same time. All the while he has resisted the temptation of drugs.
It was Marsh who would always line up at the starting line, dig his spikes into the track, look over at his opposition, and wonder who was taking what and in how big of doses.
He'd look at the East Germans and wonder, What have they been up to? He'd look at runners who had been sidelined by injury maybe a week before, and now here they stood, as ready as ever.
And the runners would look at Marsh, a.k.a. Mr. Clean, and not wonder about a thing. If everyone were like Henry Marsh there would go the steroid market. Pfft. He was always Public Enemy No. 1 of your friendly neighborhood stanozol distributor. He spent his career as a favorite target of hulking shot-putters and hammer throwers, who liked to throw copies of the "Underground Handbook to Steroids" at him.
That he managed to rank in the top 10 in the world in the steeplechase for 12 straight years - and never do drugs or blood-dope - was one of your higher tributes to clean living.
He was tested for drugs as often as anyone. In Russia, Australia, Korea, Canada, all over Europe. You name the country. He gave them a sample. It was always a waste of time. The only thing they ever found is that he was alive.
After placing sixth at the Seoul Olympics, Marsh kissed the track and decided it was time to call it a career. He retired, but only sort of. A few months away from knots in his stomach, cramps in his legs, and that wonderful feeling of always being in lactic acid debt, turned him toward thoughts of a comeback, of perhaps a fifth Olympiad when the youth of the world assemble in Barcelona in 1992.
Then came this drug problem. TAC sent a notice last Dec. 19 that he needed to be tested as part of the new random-testing program. Marsh was on the road, giving seminars for the Franklin Institute, his employer. There were logistical problems. TAC didn't have a tester in Kansas City, where Marsh was telling people how to manage their stress. TAC invoked the two-year suspension.
There is irony that it was Marsh who, as a longtime member (and chairman for four years) of the Athletes Advisory Council of the United States Olympic Committee, helped formulate the random drug policy now being enforced by The Athletics Congress. There is more irony that it was Marsh who complained that the problems with the policy were in proper notification of athletes. And there is even more irony in that Marsh was the chairman of the USOC's eligibility committee until that committee was disbanded as part of the USOC streamlining effort only four months ago.
If Marsh had made an appeal of the TAC's ruling to the USOC five months ago, the executive director of the USOC would have referred the appeal to the chairman of the eligibiity committee.
"I could have complained to myself," said Marsh.
He has no question how he would have ruled. As it is, he's appealing to the TAC board, which will reportedly act quickly now that the issue has become national in scope. The Chicago Tribune and Boston Globe and USA Today, among others, have written articles this past week, siding emotionally with Marsh, and on Sunday, Marsh appeared coast to coast on NBC Sportsworld with commentator Don Criqui and TAC President Frank Greenberg.
Marsh stated his case eloquently enough to make his law professors in Oregon proud, and Greenberg backpedaled, saying "Well, that's why we have an appeals process. I hope justice is served."
Marsh isn't even sure he'll compete internationally again. But he wants to make that decision, not someone else, and, more than that, he doesn't want to taint a reputation he spent 12 years to establish. "That's what this is all about," he said. "Drugs have no place in sports, and they should be eliminated. But the system should convict the guilty, and protect the innocent."