Warning: sports stars may be hazardous to your health.

• Author: DeParle, Jason
• Position: Cigarette endorsement

Sports celebrate health. Cigarettes cause death. So what's that Marlboro sign doing at Shea Stadium?

In case you missed it, this year's press guide to the Women's International Tennis Association is an impressive volume. Its 456 glossy pages bear tribute to what the guide immodestly calls "one of the greatest success stories of the modem sports world"-how women's tennis stepped from obscurity into the limelight of the Virginia Slims circuit, where this year players will compete for more than $17 million in prize money. Just twenty years ago, the nation's best women tennis players languished before small crowds on high school courts. Now, the guide says, with their own massage therapists and "state-of-theart forecasting system," they've become "synonymous with style." They're synonymous with wealth, too: Chris Evert's $8.6 million in lifetime earnings places her a distant second to Martina Navratilova's $14 million. But most of all, they're synonymous with fine physical form. Sprinkled throughout the media guide are photos of athletes in peak physical condition: Manuela Maleeva bends "low for a forehand volley," "Hana Mandlikova intently awaits a return," "Gabriela Sabatini puts to use her smashing' backhand."

Those of us less physically gifted than Hana Mandlikova can't help but envy the strength in her legs, power in her arms, and stamina in her lungs as

she pauses, racket poised, before exploding into her backhand. It's precisely the rareness of these qualities that brings us to admire her so, and to pause a moment when looking at her picture. Because as Hana Mandlikova intently awaits a return, she does so in front of a big sign that says "Virginia Slims"-a product not known for promoting the powers of heart and lung that lie at the center of her trade. In fact, throughout the guide-not to mention the nation's sports pages and television broadcasts-we find these stars showeasing their enviable talents in front of cigarette ads. The bold corporate logo of the Virginia Slims series emphasizes the bond: a woman, sassy and sleek, holds a racket in one hand and a cigarette in the other. This is odd. Tennis champions, after all, are models of health, particularly the health of heart and lungs, where endurance is essential. And cigarette smoking, as the Surgeon General recently reminded, "is the chief avoidable cause of death

in our society"-death, more precisely, from heart and lung disease.

Struck by this seeming contradiction, I called Renee Bloch Shallouf, whom the guide lists as Media Services Manager for the players union, and asked if she, too, was impressed with the incongruity. "I think I'll defer this one over to Virginia Slims," she said. "They're the sponsor. We're just the players union. All I can do is give you a personal opinion."

"What is your personal opinion?" "Noo-hoooo," she said, keeping the answer to herself.

Shallouf ended the conversation by saying, "If I find somebody opinionated-someone willing to give their opinion-around here, I'll call you." Turning back to the media guide, I flipped to the section marked "Virginia Slims Personnel," and, to my surprise, found a familiar face on the page. There, bearing the impressive title of "Director, Worldwide Operations," was Anne Person, a college classmate of mine. Perhaps she would have some thoughts on the compatibility of tennis and tobacco. But, though she answers a phone at Philip Morris headquarters, she said she was only a "consultant" and that she worked "only on the tennis end." As for her thoughts about tobacco, she said, "I just can't do it. I don't choose to do it. . . . Regarding the tobacco issue, I don't choose to share my opinions." She suggested I call Steve Weiss, the manager of media relations for Philip Morris, U.S.A. When I did, Weiss sounded astonished. He said he found the question-is there a contradiction between the vigor of athletics and the disease caused by cigarettes?-a breach of journalistic ethics. "Are you editorializing?" he said. "I disagree with your premises. . . You're saying that cigarette smoking causes a disease? Can I ask you something? Is that your opinion? That's a very opinionated statement. I'd appreciate a little more openmindedness. . . . I disagree with a journalist who calls and issues a very opinionated statement, when the credo of journalism is balance, fairness, and accuracy." He referred me to the code of reportorial probity, as articulated by the professional society, Sigma Delta Chi. We backed up and started again. Q: Does smoking lead to disease?

A: "I'm not a doctor. I would leave that to more informed individuals."

Q: Is the Surgeon General an informed individual?

A: "I think the Surgeon General is but one voice among many in the continuing debate about cigarette smoking."

On it went for about an hour, a stock recitation of the Philip Morris line. Or almost-there was a momentary point of diversion. Insisting that Philip Morris was not trying to make cigarettes seem glamorous, Weiss said, "We don't ask any of our players to smoke. I doubt many, if any, do."

Hmmm.... and why is that?

Pause.

Then, growing agitated, Weiss said, "That's their choice. You have to ask them. I'm not qualified to answer that. I am absolutely not qualified to say what anybody does or does not do. I'm retracting that, Jason ......

At that point, Weiss's voice took on the tin echo of a speaker phone. "I want you to know that I'm recording this conversation," he said. Smokes Illustrated

The fit athletes of the Virginia Slims circuit who swat balls in front of cigarette ads, in a tournament named for a cigarette brand, pocketing large sums from a cigarette company's largesse, are but a small subset of the great marriage of sports and tobacco. A large and growing number of sports now lend their athletes' credibility as fine physical specimens to the tobacco companies, whose products, by the Surgeon General's estimate, kill about 1,000 people a day. Cigarette manufacturers exploit sporting events in a variety of ways, ranging from such old-fashioned strategies as stadium advertising to the virtual invention of eponymous sports, like Winston Series Drag Racing or Marlboro Cup horseracing. When the pitchmen of Philip Morris say, "You've come a long way baby," they could very well be congratulating

themselves; their success in co-opting the nation's health elite to promote a product that leads to an array of fatal discases is extraordinary. But they couldn't have done it alone. For starters, they needed the cooperation of the athletes, and, with a few praiseworthy exceptions, they've gotten it. When Billie Jean King set out 20 years ago to find a sponsor for women's tennis, she may have needed Philip Morris as much as it needed her. But these days, she and the other stars of women's tennis have actually had to fight off other corporate sponsors who would welcome the chance to take over. The tobacco companies have also needed the help of sports journalists, and, again, they've gotten it. The daily papers have been silent. The big magazines, like Sports Illustrated, are thick with tobacco ads and thin on tobacco critics. And the networks have been perfectly happy to show an infield decked with Marlboro banners, race cars painted with Marboro signs, officials wearing Marlboro logos-while pretending that cigarette ads are still banned from the air.

The marriage of cigarettes and sports has at least three insidious consequences. The first, and perhaps most troubling, is that it obscures the connection of cigarettes and disease, subliminally and perhaps even consciously. Quick: speak the words "Virginia Slims" and what do you see? A) Chris Evert, or B) the cancer ward? If you answered A)-and most people do-then Philip Morris has you right where it wants you. (The recognition of this power is why the soccer star Pele won't pose near cigarette signs.) The second troubling fact about cigarettes' tryst with sport is that it allows them to penetrate the youth market. Cigarette spokesmen self-righteously insist they have no such goal. But tobacco companies desperately need teen smokers for the simple reason that few people start smoking once they are adults; and there's scarcely anyone more glamorous to a teenager than a star athlete. The third reason why cigarettes' infiltration of athletics is bad is that it circumvents the ban on television ads. Previously, cigarette companies had to hire actors to play athletes in their commercials, but now they've got the real thing. Emphysema Slims

For those keeping moral score, cigarettes' involvement with aerobic sports, like tennis and soccer, is probably the most indefensible, since the respiratory fitness those sports require and represent is precisely what cigarettes deprive people of. That is, race car drivers can smoke and drive, but soccer stars certainly can't smoke and sprint. That doesn't mean race car drivers are welcome to promote cigarettes, of course. Their ties to tobacco endanger the public health by

continuing to make cigarettes seem glamorous to kids, and by keeping the cigarette signs on T.V.

For leads on many of the following items, I am indebted to Dr. Alan Blum, a Baylor physician whose anti-smoking research and protests (like the staging of an "Emphysema Slims") makes him the Don King of the anti-smoking world:

4 Soccer: Besides the world's most enviable lungs, soccer offers cigarettes two other advantages: wild overseas popularity at a time when American tobacco companies are stepping up their Third World trade, and a growing popularity among American youth.

Camel cigarettes, manufactured by R.J. Reynolds, was one of four major sponsors of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico City. Among the privileges it received in return was the chance to post four sevenmeter Camel signs next to the field, where the worldwide television audience of 650 million for the final game alone could see them.

A brochure by ISL Marketing, a firm that handles World Cup marketing...