Harris Accepts 4-Year Ban for Cocaine Use : Track and field: Second-ranked 400-meter hurdler tests positive in national indoor games.

Danny Harris, ranked No. 2 in the world last season in the 400-meter hurdles, will not appeal a four-year suspension levied after he tested positive for cocaine at an indoor meet earlier this year.

Harris’ coach, Bob Kersee, said that the 26-year-old hurdler chose to accept the ban. A panel of The Athletics Congress, the national governing body for track and field, was scheduled to hear his appeal in Los Angeles this weekend.

Kersee, who has been coaching Harris for about a year, said Harris has had a problem with cocaine since 1989 and tested positive for the drug after finishing third in the 500 meters at the national indoor championships on Feb. 29.

Kersee said Harris, who lives in Torrance, will check himself into a substance abuse program, possibly by next week.

“He wants to concentrate on getting his life in order now,” Kersee said.

Although not often thought of as a performance-enhancing drug, cocaine is classified as a stimulant on the international banned-substance list.

Rumors of Harris’ positive test surfaced last month, after he withdrew from the New York Games on May 24 for “personal reasons,” then failed to show at the Bruce Jenner meet at San Jose a week later. TAC officials would not comment on the matter. Kersee would say at the time only that Harris “was not able” to run, but that he expected him to return to competition soon.

By forgoing his right to an appeal, Harris will immediately begin serving his suspension, the length of which will prevent him from competing in the Barcelona Olympics and the track and field world championships of 1995.

Harris was the silver medalist in the 400 hurdles at the 1984 Olympics but is perhaps best known for breaking world record-holder Edwin Moses’ 122-race winning streak on June 4, 1987, at Madrid.

Moses has recently kept a low profile and said last week that he will not run at the Olympic trials, which begin June 19 at New Orleans.

With the absence of Moses, Harris has reigned as the top American, having run 47.38 seconds in the event last year. Despite his fifth-place finish at the world championships at Tokyo in August, Harris was considered an Olympic medal contender.

Harris played football at Perris High, but he competed in track at Iowa State. It was there, in 1984, that Harris established himself as a prodigy when he broke the world junior record five times, won the NCAA title and finished second at both the U.S. Olympic trials and the Los Angeles Olympics.