Marion, Oh Marion

I saw a story in USA Today that rekindles bad memories about an athlete I thought was going to turn out okay.

Marion Jones, the disgraced Olympic runner, now in the pokey for lying about her use of performance-enhancing drugs at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, continues to wreak havoc on everything she touches.

Members of her relay teams — bronze-winning 4 x 100 and gold-winning 4 x 400 – at Sydney could lose their medals due to guilt by association. The International Olympic Committee agreed with a disciplinary panel that the teammates should be stripped of their medals. Andrea Anderson, Jearl Miles Clark, Monique Hennagan and LaTasha Colander-Richardson of the 4 x 400 and Torri Edwards, Chryste Gaines, Nanceen Perry and Pamela Richardson of the 4 x 400, all stand to lose their medals because of Jones’s cheating.

American Jerome Young captured gold in the men’s 4 x 400 in Sydney. He flunked a drug test in 1999 and should have been DQ’d from the Olympics, but he wasn’t. He ran in the preliminaries, but was stripped of his medal. His teammates kept their medals, but Jones’s teammates can only hope for the same fate.

This is not likely because with the sentencing of the high-profile Jones, everybody around her is tainted whether they like it or not…

Just the same, if the ladies are stripped of their hardware then so should the men.

From adamantly defiant to blubbering disgrace, Marion Jones continued to use bad judgment until she finally apologized for her actions. A little too late if you ask me.

And I thought the future was so bright for her.

As a member of the Track Writers Association of America back in the 1990s, I had an opportunity to interview the 15-year-old Jones along with her mother, Marion Tolner. Back then they were known as “Big Marion” and “Little Marion.” A native of Belize, Tolner lived near Yankee Stadium in the Bronx for two years.

“I couldn’t take the cold weather,” she stated back then as her bubbly daughter prepared for the National Outdoor Track and Field Championships on Randall’s Island right across from Manhattan Island.

Jones finished eighth in the 100-meters and a remarkable fourth in the 200 that day so long ago.

Now, a mother of two in her early 30s, Jones is far removed from the bubbly teen chowing down on some pasta. She was looking forward to her future as a world-class athlete. She was going to be the next Jackie Joynee-Kersee. Remember, Jones was also a world-class long jumper. Too bad her success is attributed to bad chemistry.

I went on a cruise this past Christmas and stopped in Belize and actually drove past their national stadium named after one Marion Jones. And just like her life and career, the stadium was in disarray.

I’m sure once she gets out of prison Marion Jones will preach to anyone who will listen about not doing what she did. I’m sure she will be a bit teary-eyed, but I really don’t care to hear from athletes or politicians who leave the stage in disgrace, spend time out of the media’s eye, and then come back refreshed, with a new message.

Do me a favor? Just go away. Raise you kids and leave the rest of us alone.

Besides, I’m waiting for the next high-profile athlete to crash and burn right in front of my television eyes.