Dwight Stones

Six days before the opening ceremony of the Games of the XXIst Olympiad, Dwight Stones stood on the field at Montreal's Olympic Stadium, looked up at the steel girders of the unfinished roof jutting into the gray sky and watched the rain slant down. It was, for Stones, a terrible sight, but it wasn't as ugly as the scene at his feet. When he looked at the apron of the high jump pit--where he was supposed to leave his footprints into history a few days later--he saw a pool of water.

A roomful of high school track coaches scribbled notes as a 62-year-old man in blue jeans and Nikes trotted back and forth between a row of desks to demonstrate the finer details of Olympic-class high jumping. For three hours Thursday the coaches listened intently as Tom Tellez, the legendary trainer of track and field superstars Carl Lewis, Leroy Burrell and Dwight Stones, took them step by step through his own scientifically grounded training tips.

It would have been easy to write off Dwight Stones in 1980. At age 26, Stones, a former world-record high jumper and two-time Olympic bronze medalist, was coming off a suspension and the boycott of the 1980 Olympics. Until then, no high jumper over 25 ever had been ranked in the Top 10. There was talk that Stones' high-jumping days were numbered. "It would have been very easy for me to say, 'That figures.

Six days before the opening ceremony of the Games of the XXIst Olympiad, Dwight Stones stood on the field at Montreal's Olympic Stadium, looked up at the steel girders of the unfinished roof jutting into the gray sky and watched the rain slant down. It was, for Stones, a terrible sight, but it wasn't as ugly as the scene at his feet. When he looked at the apron of the high jump pit--where he was supposed to leave his footprints into history a few days later--he saw a pool of water.

A roomful of high school track coaches scribbled notes as a 62-year-old man in blue jeans and Nikes trotted back and forth between a row of desks to demonstrate the finer details of Olympic-class high jumping. For three hours Thursday the coaches listened intently as Tom Tellez, the legendary trainer of track and field superstars Carl Lewis, Leroy Burrell and Dwight Stones, took them step by step through his own scientifically grounded training tips.

Soviet high jumper Rudolf Povarnitsin set a world high jump record of 7 feet 10 1/2 inches Sunday, according to the Soviet news agency Tass. The old world record of 7-10 was established by China's Zhu Jianhua in West Germany in June, 1984. The official news agency said Povarnitsin, a 23-year-old from Kiev, set the new mark in the semifinals of the Soviet National Cup held in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk. Povarnitsin improved his previous best of 7-5 set earlier this year.

John Huarte, the only Orange County native to win the Heisman Trophy, will be the featured celebrity in Wednesday's annual Hall of Fame Charity Golf Tournament at Anaheim Hills Golf Course. Huarte, who graduated from Mater Dei High School and now lives in Phoenix, won the Heisman in 1964 when he led Notre Dame to a 9-1 record.

Javier Sotomayor of Cuba broke the world record in the high jump Thursday. Sotomayor, 22, set the record with a jump of 7 feet 11 1/2 inches, a quarter-inch more than the previous world record, set by Patrick Sjoeberg of Sweden on June 6, 1987, at Stockholm. Sotomayor made his first jump at 7-10 1/2 and set the mark on his second jump. It was the first outdoor world record set in Spain. Renaldo Nehemiah of the United States won the 110-meter hurdles in 13.

It would have been easy to write off Dwight Stones in 1980. At age 26, Stones, a former world-record high jumper and two-time Olympic bronze medalist, was coming off a suspension and the boycott of the 1980 Olympics. Until then, no high jumper over 25 ever had been ranked in the Top 10. There was talk that Stones' high-jumping days were numbered. "It would have been very easy for me to say, 'That figures.

The rift in the Dan & Dave Decathlon Show, which first showed up when Dan O'Brien no-heighted at the Olympic trials in New Orleans, widened into a gulf Friday when Johnson's wife, taking offense at remarks attributed to Dan O'Brien, criticized him for "unfortunate, even un-American" behavior. "I usually don't say anything, but I want to publicly condemn what Dan O'Brien said on a TripleCast network show the other night," Sherry Johnson said at a post-event news conference with her husband.

Nine new members of the Orange County Sports Hall of Fame will be inducted tonight during a banquet at the Disneyland Hotel, where Merlin Olsen will serve as master of ceremonies. Bobby Knopp, Bertha Ragan Tickey, Dwight Stones, Bruce Penhall, Shirley Topley, Alex Omalev, Bill Cook, Homer Beatty and Pat McInally will be enshrined. Five others will be recognized with special achievement awards.