Flashing a wide smile, Marion Jones clutched the microphone and spoke to 20,000 or so Kansas Relays fans Saturday afternoon at Memorial Stadium.

“This has been awesome. If you want me to come back, maybe I will next year. Do you?” Jones asked the throng.

The fans responded with boisterous cheers.

Jones, a 29-year-old U.S. Olympic champion from Chapel Hill, N.C., hinted strongly Saturday she would return for an encore performance next spring.

“I’d been invited here before and am kicking myself in the behind for not coming here sooner,” Jones said after running the anchor leg of an 800-meter relay team, which had its runaway victory disqualified because of a bad handoff.

“To see so many athletes of all ages mingling together, it’s a sign of mutual respect. It’s been fun,” Jones added. “And the competition here can only get better.”

Jones, who skipped a media session after her race at the Mount Sacramento Relays two weeks ago, spoke at length with media twice at the Relays. One national reporter said he never had heard of Jones mingling with the press for as long as she did during Friday’s 30-minute news conference.

She also signed autographs for fans and posed for countless pictures.

“If meets like this start a trend, more athletes will stay (in U.S.),” said Jones, who was paid $10,000 or more for her appearance at the Relays compared to $50,000 or so for meets all over Europe.

“The stars will show up at the front door if you tell them you are here.”

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Meet director Tim Weaver is hopeful Jones will return, along with Olympian Maurice Greene of Kansas City, Kan., another fan favorite who indicated he was planning on including the Relays on his ’06 track calendar.

“So many people come to watch and are so impressed with Maurice Greene, the hometown hero who carries himself so well and is such a role model,” Weaver said. “Marion was so easy to work with, so sweet, kind. She spent some time playing with my son and just had fun all weekend.

“I hope all the featured athletes will return.”

There’s a good chance of that, considering Weaver’s brainchild — the three-hour Gold Zone — attracted the second largest crowd in Relays history, lagging behind only the 32,000 who attended in 1972. The crowd for the entire weekend was announced at 24,200, with at least 20,000 in the stands Saturday.

“I spent some time with chancellor (Robert) Hemenway and Lew (Perkins, athletic director) and they were very generous in their compliments, for everybody who made this work,” Weaver said.

“Everyone totally bought into the Gold Zone concept. It’s a phenomenal feeling to have this vision and have everybody buy into it. I think you are going to see a lot of meets start to take on this format.”

Weaver, who works year round on the Relays, nearly broke into tears when Perkins told him the final attendance tally.

“To stand there on the track and look out to the southwest, see the Campanile, the green grass and all those fans on the sunny side of the stadium, it looked like a football game,” Weaver said. “I was taken aback when Lew handed me the piece of paper with the attendance totals.”

Much of the credit goes to Weaver, who grinned when reading a post on the kusports.com track message board.

“Somebody said, ‘Tim Weaver is the blankety blank Don King of track and field.’ Well, if that’s the case, then all I can say is, ‘Only in America; only in America,'” Weaver quipped.

Today he’ll turn attention to next year’s event.

“We’ve already started with our list and we’re already thinking about 2006,” Weaver said. “I’m sure next year’s goal will be the same as this year’s goal — to have the best meet possible.”