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Marion Jones - Rio Mesa/Thousand Oaks
Later this week Marion Jones, probably the most successful
high school age track and field athlete ever to come out of California
since CIF female athletics became a part of the prep program, will
be sentenced in a New York State courtroom later this week to possible
jail time for lying to federal authorities about steroid drug usage
and involvement in a check writing scam. During a career at Rio
Mesa and Thousand Oaks High Schools during the period 1990-1993
there was no more dynamic, successful, and well-publicized athlete
in our state as she romped across the track and eventually branched
out into the field events, and added State Player of the Year status
in a second activity, basketball, along the way. Like most who
followed our sport back during that period we were glued to the
every athletic effort of this very friendly star who seemed to
have a real magic to her every contest on any sports facility.
From the press box, through involvement with meets across the country,
and from our contact with Marion we had kind of a special close
seat to follow her during those years and this week will take a
look at her athletic career in two chunks, the high school years
and in a day or two, the period that followed that lead up to 2008. Marion had a second sport, basketball, and out of pure athletic ability was quite good there. Can you imagine the effect a basically 10-flat 100 yard sprinter and 22 foot long jumper would have on a Girls High School Varsity basketball game. That was the situation when you put Marion in the middle of things on the court as a prepster. She started her high school career at Rio Mesa HS and I worked in the district that school is a part of for a time and have the upmost respect for what they do at Rio Mesa in all areas, a school that interestingly sits in the middle of agricultural groves, drawing students from a couple of different areas, sitting mid-point between Oxnard, Camarillo, and Saticoy. With Marion having attended middle school in the greater San Fernando Valley some family thought obviously went into her showing up at Rio Mesa, as the school had most recently turned out Angela Burnham, one of the State’s top all-time dashers. Being a bit selfish about Track and Field, it was a fact that Rio Mesa would probably not be playing in Basketball championship games through mid-March at Rio Mesa at least early in her prep career and I saw Marion starting her running in the spring a bit earlier than if she were attending some basketball factory that was into the championship level games each winter far into spring time. The week after Marion finished her frosh basketball season at Rio Mesa her first spring track meet had her with some impressive marks and I put in a call to Mike Byrnes of the National Scholastic Sports Foundation and I indicated that it might be good to try to have Marion involved with their National Scholastic Indoor Championships in Syracuse, New York at the Carrier Dome. Byrnes thought a bit and went to work tracking the young star down, with Marion showing up , winning the event against a group that had months of indoor competitions under their belt, and setting a National Frosh 200 meter record of 24.40 for the fastest prep time of that entire indoor season. She had raced a 6.53 for 50 meters during her one other winter indoor meet in the Los Angeles area that winter, making her the #6 prep ever at that rarely run distance. Anyway, her prep track and field career was off like a rocket with easterners asking at the Syracuse National Championship affair, “Who is this girl?” They would soon find out a lot more as Marion would spend the next three years at the high school level shelling the competiton and racing to the highest quality prep sprint career ever by a US high schooler.
That ninth grade spring we had more contact with Marion, as she would match up with Inger Miller (Muir, Pasadena), the daughter of Olympic Gold Medalist Lennox Miller from Jamaica, who attended USC and was a local dentist. Miller was the state’s and one of the nation’s top returning sprinters for her senior 1990 season, with 11.53 and 23.62 sprint bests to match her pedigree. At our early April Arcadia Invitational Don Franken of the famous family that ran many LA area indoor and outdoor meets, the famed Sunkist and Pepsi series among them, used to help us and liked to have a press conference of the top high-schoolers for the prep writers who could make it early in the week of the meet and have some information to use in previews. Marion was one of a the athletes who made it to the conference, and I can remember it like it happened yesterday, where she showed poise and personality far beyond her years as the fourteen year old stood and spoke to the thirty to forty people in attendance. A quick smile, impressive analysis and response to questions, wit to match her speed on the track, and I thought, “Boy, this young athlete has it all.” It turned out that the Arcadia meet that next weekend was featured on the Fox Sports TV show with Marion and Inger Miller from Muir having great showdowns in the 100 and 200 meter event, Inger barely winning both. The 100 was run into a 2 meter per second wind with Inger racing 11.71 to Marion’s 11.78, with the Muir star back to take the 200 at 23.57 with Jones 23.80. Inger’s 200 was the nation’s quickest for the year and Marion had set another National grade Record, the 23.80 the fastest ever run by a U.S. frosh outdoors. Both stars were interviewed by television after the races, and both were super in front of the camera. Inger gracious in victory, with Marion calmly indicating she needed to work on her start, but one sensed that down the road the youngster would be tough for the senior Miller to handle. That meet was the site of Jack Shepard of Track and Field News and his famous quote to Inger, “Enjoy it as this will probably be the last time you ever beat Marion Jones.” Inger was bothered by injuries for the end of the spring season, and she was second to Marion at the Southern Section State qualifying meet in both sprints, with the two-day state affair more than a bad ankle could handle, with Inger qualifying, then not racing in the State Finals 100 and 200. Marion Jones raced to 11.67 and 23.71 state meet titles as a frosh. Her seasonal bests of 11.62 and 23.70 were National Age-14 records.
The 1991 spring season had Marion draw big headlines early in the spring season once again at our Arcadia Invitational, as she would face the 1990 Track and Field News Prep Female Athlete of the Year, Zundra Feagin (Cocoa, Florida) 11.35-23.13 and Teresa Foster (Huntington, Shreveport, Louisiana) 11.5-23.75. Feagin was a World Junior Silver Medalist at 200 meters the previous summer, so she was experienced up through the international level as a prepster. Marion was still doing the round-ball stuff, averaging 24.6 points and 10 rebounds per game for her Rio Mesa HS squad during the winter, so it was not like she was pounding the track in preparation since September. Marion had once again traveled to the National Scholastic Indoor Meet back east in early March, second in the 55 meters to Feagin 6.85-6.91, with Marion winning the 200 at 23.89 over Zundra’s 24.03. Feagin had set a quick 7.30 National 60m record that winter, and actually set a 23.67 National 200m record in the Trials of the NSIC meet prior to Marion taking her in the Finals. Jones had equalled the National Prep indoor 50 meter dash record of 6.43 earlier that winter while focusing on basketball. Super conditions greeted the sprinters with their recent history in the 100 at Arcadia, with Marion having worked on her start, racing away to an 11.38 win over Feagin 11.62 (wind +.38 mps), a stunning performance that was the yearly national leader, meet record, national age-15, and US soph class record. Gulp, our young rocket was moving into the stratosphere. It was better over 200, with Jones, a lane (5) outside of the quick-starting Feagin (lane 4), feeling pressure as Zundra edged up by the end of the turn prior to Marion putting on the powerful after-burners, after which she raced away to an astounding 22.87 win over Feagin’s 23.27. This was a new National Federation prep record, and the second fastest ever run by a high-schooler behind Chandra Cheeseborough’s 22.77 achieved at altitude in Mexico City from 1975. I remember after the race when Marion was interviewed by Howard Willman of Track and Field News and he told her that the time was 22.8, she replied, “That was the hand-time wasn’t it?” When he replied that no that was the automatic time she hesitated a few seconds and replied, “Wow.” About a decade later when interviewed in Sydney, Australia at the Olympic Games when asked when she felt she had the ability to become an Olympic Champion she replied that it was that evening at our facility at Arcadia where she really started to expand her career possibilities in her mind to include what could be achieved at the top end of our sport. Later that season Marion added a super 11.30 (+1.95 mps wind), 52.91 (400), and 23.06 (-.90 mps) in the Section divisional meet, the races run in that order, gearing it down during the final half-lap event in a stunning afternoon of sprinting. At state that year Marion blasted 11.14w (+4.10) in winning her Prelims heat by .87 of a second, then added an 11.17 (+1.93) finals run that bettered the National Federation record and was the #2 prep time ever run. In the 200 Jones raced a 22.97w (+3.08) heat and 22.91w (+2.25) final to win by a second. Marion emerged on the National stage later that June of 1991 with a super fourth place in the USATF Senior Nationals in New York over 200 meters at 22.76, just missing the US World Championship squad for Tokyo that year but bettering the All-Time Prep best of 22.77 by Chandra Cheeseborough (Florida) from 1975 in a competition where she won the Pan American Games. Marion was eighth in New York over 100 meters. With appearances on Good Morning America and picture in the Sports Section of the Sunday New York Times our girl was really going nation-wide. Marion attended the US Junior National Championships in Blaine, Minnesota after the Senior Championships, racing 11.29 to win the 100 and 23.35 to take the 200. She turned down spots on the US Junior team for International competition after that, relaxing during the summer and getting ready for basketball. She was named the Gatorade US Prep Track and Field Athlete of the Year.
It was during the Olympic 1992 year that the story of Marion became rather interesting. Jones was transferred to Thousand Oaks HS where there was a much more successful basketball program, among the State’s best, and Track Coach Art Green allowed for a bit more liberal coaching situation, with Marion tutored now by Elliot Mason, a fine 400 runner for Los Angeles HS and University of Redlands who worked at Harbor College and is currently a counselor there. Elliot had trained with Evelyn Ashford and it was said that Marion’s mother admired the length and success of Evelyn’s career and felt some of Elliot’s experiences and knowledge would be a help with her daughter. With goals that obviously went into the summer of an Olympic year, Marion still put on a show at the state meet, racing pre history’s #2 All-Time performance ever at 11.14 (Chandra Cheeseborough 11.13 prep best in the 1976 Olympic Trials), then went from the victory stand and national record signing paperwork directly to the starting line for the 200 meters, where she blasted a 22.83 winner. At the Olympic Trials in New Orleans Marion raced to fine 11.29 for fifth in the 100 and 22.58 for fourth in the 200, the latter an all-time prep best for the half lap. Marion turned down the chance to be a part of the US Relay pool for the Barcelona Olympic Games. She was still only sixteen years old and raced in early July at the US Junior Championships (under age 20 athletes), taking the 100 at 11.30 and the 200 at 22.94. Mike Byrnes of the National Scholastic Sports Foundation had helped Marion gain travel assistance to the Junior Nationals from OJ Simpson as he searched for sources to help her secure travel to that championship meet in Ohio. Her Junior Meet wins qualified her for the World Junior Championships, very late that year with the Olympics and all, with Marion returning from that late summer competition with fifth place finishes in the 100 and seventh in the 200, obviously finding it tough to maintain form two months after her last serious championship meet. 1993 had its particular twists and turns, with the first a failure to respond to a request to report for drug testing when mail to Coach Mason was waylaid and at the Olympic level this is a very serious offense, with that whole testing mechanism quite significant in continuing eligibility for international level competition. Marion’s camp pleaded that they did not receive the mail while penalties of huge proportion were mentioned by track governing authorities, with famed lawyer Johnnie Cochran coming to Marion’s legal defense. The eventual implications were not fatal to her track and field career, but it did seemed to effect the high schooler’s approach to track for a time, with basketball moving in to take her attention. Thousand Oaks HS was very successful over the two years with Marion, suffering a total of four losses during that time and Jones was named the State Division I Player of the Year her senior season.
When the spring track and field season started in 1993 Marion also took up the Long Jump. I arrived late at the Cal Poly Pomona Relays that March and saw Marion. I understood she was going to Long Jump that week and so I asked her how she did. She replied she thought she jumped like 19-10, and my thought was wow! It turned out he leap was 19-10.75 and the facility she was jumping into, a practice golf sand trap outside the main track stadium made us realize our girl had a new quality event. She jumped 20-09.25 at the Arcadia Meet that year a couple of weeks later, with attendee Mike Powell, World Record Holder, stating she could jump 23 or 24 feet with some coaching. With the Long Jumping, college choice to make and all, Marion had a super senior year, leaping an amazing 22-00.5 (22-01.75w), making her prep history’s #2 jumper ever, with 11.28 and 23.00 sprint bests. She took the State Meet 100 at 11.61 (-3.0 mps wind) and 200 at 23.14 (-2.10), with her 22-00.5 LJ best coming in that competition. After a long, serious high school career that included four years of sweeping the 100 and 200 at the State meet, Marion mentioned she looked forward to a long vacation in Belize to follow up the year of basketball and track. She had agreed to go back east to the University of North Carolina to play Basketball and compete in Track and Field, so those of us in Southern California would have to observe her from afar for a time. The distance may have had partially to do with gaining some independence from her mother, who proceeded to follow her daughter to the east coast.
What an amazing High School career. Marion had swept
the 100 and 200 at the state meet all four years of her high school
career, and added the Long Jump in fine style her senior year.
She left high school as the second fastest 100 meter runner in
US Prep History (11.14), with the National All-Time prep best at
200 meters 22.58 (with eight of US history’s top ten all-time
prep marks there), and added the #2 Long Jump in US High School
prep history at 22-00.5. Indoors, while focusing on basketball
or just off the sport she had equalled the National Best at 50
meters (6.43) and had the number three All-time prep 200 meter
mark indoors at 23.89 from her soph year (she added a 23.93 her
junior year). She was the Gatorade National Track and Field Athlete
of the Year three times and Track and Field News Prep Athlete of
the Year twice during her prep career.
The sky seemed the limit for this special Southern
Californian. In part 2 of this series we will summarize her career
since her high school years, spent at the University of North Carolina,
and after participation there in Basketball and Track and Field,
continuing to live mostly in that area and training as a professional
athlete. |
