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Marion Jones
- The Post High School Years
Marion Jones - the Post High School Years Through 2008 During the fall of 1993 Marion headed to the University of North Carolina, with the school having a great tradition in both Track and Field and Basketball. The winter roundball activity her first collegiate season at North Carolina (1993-1994) exceeded what anyone could have considered possible, as Marion was turned into a guard by Coach Sylvia Hatchell, with our flexible star gaining a starting position after the team’s fourth game and during an amazing run, the Tar Heel team won the whole NCAA Division I champonship that frosh year. Track fans were taken back a bit by the success Marion had on the court with her team as she averaged over fourteen points per game, with the NCAA Finals in early April at the Collegiate level obviously affecting her Collegiate track season. During her first university level season she was an NCAA All-American in four events, including a second in the Long Jump in a lifetime best of 22-01.75. It appeared the two sports were kind of battling for her focus, with the Women’s pro game on the roundball side a possibility down the road. The svelt track body appeared to now feature a bit more padding, understandably with the strength component and physical, pounding nature of modern basketball. A friend from back east who was a high school coach and spent some time with Marion’s family as a Belize native himself, once said that when he took Marion on in the backyard one on one game in basketball it was not like he was playing at all against a high school age girl, but a very physical athlete who could really power around the basket. Marion knew her way around the court. The Tar Heel Basketball squad was 30-5 in 1995, making it to the NCAA Regional Finals that campaign, with Marion the first soph in the school’s history to make it to 1000 points in scoring, with all ACC honors as the squad did take the conference championship. Jones was honored as a part of the All-ACC squad. The UNC outdoor Track and Field team took the Outdoor ACC title by an amazing 81 points. Team leaders, along with Marion, were Latasha Colander and Monique Hennagan, eventual Olympic Gold Medalists, who had competed with Jones at Arcadia during their prep careers, gathering wins in the California affair as high-schoolers. Marion is listed on the University of North Carolina athletic web site on their school all-time lists with top collegiate marks of 11.40 (100m) and 23.32 (200m), and 22-01.75 (LJ) all from 1994. Marion was the ACC Outdoor Long Jump Champion in 1995 at 20-10.5, with the 1996 Olympic year looming on the horizon. The emphasis would be on Open Track and Field with the Atlanta Games a year ahead. Having previously escaped just about all the ailments that normally affect serious high level athletes over a number of years, Marion’s preparation for the 1996 Olympics hit a serious roadblock. While practicing with the US Basketball team for the World University Games during the summer of 1995 she broke a foot, which she serious reinjured a second time in December of that year. The UNC Basketball squad had a 13-14 overall record and 8-8 ACC conference record that school year without Marion, with a combined 66-7 record the previous two years (26-6 conference and 6-0 ACC Tourney record during that period). During that school year Marion started a relationship with CJ Hunter, an Olympic level Shot Putter seven years her senior who was an Assistant Coach at the University. CJ was a silver medalist in the World Indoor Championships in 1995 and was the Pan Am Gold Medalist in the event that same year along with a #5 ranking in the world. He did have two children by another women previously, and it was against University rules for coaches to have a relationship with athletes on campus. Given a choice of breaking off the relationship to maintain his job Hunter decided to continue the relationship and was no longer affiliated with the University. Marion and CJ would marry in 1998. Marion did play basketball for the University in 1996-1997, making All-American and helping lead the team to a 29-3 record, 15-1 in the ACC conference and sweeping the ACC tournament. 9-0 during her three years with the UNC Basketball squad in the ACC Tourney, Marion was the 1997 Conference Tourney MVP, with the team winning their first two NCAA Tourney contests before falling in the Eastern Regional. Focusing on the Olympic level of the sport of Track and Field from 1997 on which included a decision to not play a final year of the basketball for UNC, Marion and CJ worked out at a facility utilized by Trevor Graham, who Coached the organization known as Sprint Capitol USA, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Graham made a suggestion or three about Marion’s form and all and a coach/athlete relationship started. Marion was into great shape, with the summer of 1997 highlighted by a Gold Medal in the 100 meters in the Athens World Championships and another gold as a part of the US 4x100 meter relay. She had won the US Championship over 100m and the Long Jump with a fine 22-09, but her consistency in the latter event was always frustrating, with a tenth at the Worlds in that event nearly a foot behind her USATF winning effort. But heck, she was the world’s fastest Woman and honored as the World and American Athlete of the Year by Track and Field News so her career at the Olympic level was off like a skyrocket! Marion married CJ in 1998 and they enjoyed the lifestyle of two of the World’s top athletes, with CJ having won the bronze medal at the 1997 World Championships. Marion won all but one of her nearly forty competitions that 1998 year, with an impressive 23-11.25 Long Jump in the Prefontaine meet to up her possibilities there, with a 10.71 in China for 100 meters early in the year, and winning the World Cup in South Africa’s altitude at 10.65 and 21.62, marks only ever bettered by Florence Griffith Joyners. Again named the Track and Field News World Athlete of the Year estimates on her yearly income from athletics ranged above more than just a few million with our wonder girl achieving about all anyone would think she could. 1999 was another World Championship year in the sport, with Marion hoping for wins in the 100, 200, Long Jump, and 4x100 relay to make some history. She was the winner at the USATF Championships over 100-200 meters and second in the Long Jump to Dawn Burrell. At the world Championships she did take the 100 10.70-10.79 over old nemesis Inger Miller, but in the Long Jump hurt her back, and had to drop out of the rest of the competition while picking up a bronze medal in that event. Husband CJ won the World Championships in the Shot Put at 71-06 and was ranked #1 in the world, the first married couple to win gold in these championships in its history. Marion’s problems certainly did not seem insurmountable, with the basic speed certainly still there and plenty of time to prepare for another historical competition in Sydney, Australia at the 2000 Olympics. Early publicity for the 2000 Games had Marion indicate interest in winning five gold medals and our star was the publicity of the Games. To take the 100, 200, Long Jump, and a spot on both winning relays were certainly not out of the question for our star, with the world latching on to this dream and following it up through the Sydney competition. Marion purred through the Olympic Trials, taking Inger Miller over 100 10.88-11.05 and 200 meters 21.94-22.90, and taking the Long Jump at 23-00.5. With a solid Olympic Games effort in the Long Jump there was no reason to think the five gold medals were not a possibility. It was at the Sydney Olympic Games that the picture first became sticky, with CJ Hunter withdrawing from the US team just before the Sydney Games due to knee surgery after taking second in the US Trials at 71-09. It turned out that during the Games news of CJ’s failure on drug tests and his mention of Victor Conte and Balco and the term “nutritionist” would start a momentous trail that would lead us down until today. Anyway, the publicity surrounding CJ and Marion’s assisted denials in posssible drug usage took away headlines from the three Gold Medals (100-200-4x400 relay) and two Bronze (Long Jump and 4x100 relay) that Marion won in Sydney as the spectacular Games headliner. Our star ended the year 2000 as once again the Track and Field News World Athlete of the Year in the sport, with one sensing a distancing of herself from CJ after the Games until their eventual divorce.
2001 was another good year for Marion, with World Championship titles in the 200 and 4x100 relay, but she suffered her first defeat in the 100 meters in over 40 final runs in that event with a second to Zhanna Pintusevich-Block of the Ukraine. 2002 marked a divorce from CJ Black for Marion and a great year on the track. She was undefeated in the sprints for the year and marked a rise to the top of the sport, being named Track and Field News American Athlete of the Year. Marion started a new personal relationship, as she moved in with Tim Montgomery, the World Record Holder at 100 meters who was a part of her training group in North Carolina. Tim had run 9.78 in September of 2002, and was a sprinter of note for a number of years previously, with relay Silver (1996) and Gold (2000) medals from the Olympics, and Bronze (1997) and Silver (2001) 100 meter awards from the World Championships in addition to Golds for the 4x1's at the Worlds in 1999 and 2001. Marion’s athletic career was put on hold while she and Montgomery had a child, which she delivered in June, 2003, obviously taking that campaign off the athletic calendar for her. Marion and Tim Montgomery left Trevor Graham’s training group at the end of this year for a variety of reasons. Many eyes rolled when Marion and Montgomery sought out Canadian Charlie Francis, a Stanford University athlete a few decades previous who had been the coach of Canadian Ben Johnson, the famed Seoul 100 meter Gold Medalist who went down in a steroid scandal. That Coaching/Athletic relationship did not last long but surprised many people that it even started, based upon Francis’s past associations with the sport and how it went. In 2003 a mystery Coach, who later turned out to be Coach Trevor Graham, turned in a syringe to USATF with later examination showing it contained a THG substance (also called “the clear”), previously undetectable, but consisting of illegal performance enhancing anabolic steroid drugs. This would be traced back to Victor Conte and be the basis for the huge blow-up that affected our sport in a ton of ways and involved folks like Kelli White, Regina Jacobs, Calvin and Alvin Harrison, and others that we do not have the time to get into here. Meanwhile Marion and Tim Montgomery became involved with Dan Pfaff, a noted sprint coach, who moved to Raleigh to exclusively coach the duo, but later became embroiled in lawsuits with Marion, with Pfaff winning a significant settlement. Unfortunately, in 2004, Tim Montgomery would be the second person close to Marion who received publicity about drug usage, with Montgomery eventually testifying to sport governing bodies about his admitted drug usage with Balco coming up again as the source for his attempts to stay ahead of the drug testing bodies through the years. Tim did run in the 2004 Olympic Trials, placing seventh in the 100, but is listed in the results today with a “dv” drug violation for his admitted usage. The publicity swirled and it had to take its emotional toll, and Marion, now a mother, not seeming to have quite the energy of old, winning the Long Jump at 23-04, but placing fourth in the 100 and not making it to the starting line for the 200 rounds. Marion went to Athens for the 2004 Olympic Games, and was fifth in the Long Jump, an event she had never developed real consistency in, and unfortunately the 4x100 squad she hoped to win Gold on dropped the baton and was not able to finish the event. About this time Marion gravitated to Steve Riddick as a Coach, with Riddick a part of a check-writing fraud situation that would eventually embrace Jones also. The whole drug scene was getting a bit crazy, with Victor Conte, a man of varied backgrounds, try bassist with the Rock and Roll group “Tower of Power,” along the way, before getting into the supplements business, claiming in late 2004 that he had supplied Marion Jones with performance enhancing drugs prior to the 2000 Olympics. Victor did a “come clean” act with implications from Barry Bonds to the cleaning lady along the way. Marion fought back proclaiming innocence, and eventually launching a lawsuit against Victor Balco. In the meantime Tim Montgomery had come clean about his drug usage and he was banned from the sport. The associations were hitting kind of close to Marion at this time. As early as 2001 Marion did an interview with a body building magazine indicating that she endorsed a Victor Conte supplement ZMA, made up of zinc, magnesium, and vitamins as a base, and indicated membership in his ZMA Track Club, so there was a Marion-Conte connection. 2005 was a tough year for Marion, with European Meet promoters, the part of the world where the money is made, getting together and banning Marion from their summer competitions. At the time of the USATF Championships in 2005 Marion indicated that she was injured and passed on the meet. Marion emerged in 2006 to be the American champ over 100 meters, surprising with her 11.10 win in Indianapolis over the distance. Marion did get in races in Europe, with a couple of wins, and a seasonal best of 10.91 in a runner-up effort to Jamaica’s Sherone Simpson in Rome. Simpson also defeated her in London. It was reported then that Marion tested positive for EPO back at the USATF Meet, a drug that helps the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood, usually connected with distance runners. She and Coach Steve Riddick proclaimed innocence, but sat out the remainder of the summer awaiting vindication from the “B” sample (they take a second sample at the drug testing) result. The B sample did vindicate Marion in September after the close of about all the summer season. During 2006 Marion established a relationship with Obadele Thompson as she trained in Texas, with she having her second child by him in July of 2007, obviously eliminating her from the 2007 Track and Field season. The two were married in February of 2007 and have a residence in Austin, Texas. This all came to a famous close with the admission in October 2007 by Marion that she had lied to federal investigators as far back as November 2003 about drug usage. Marion admitted that Trevor Graham had given her what he claimed was flaxseed oil during 2001 through 2003, but she later realized was the mystery “the clear,” the illegal enhancing promoting drug developed by Conte. She realized this long before she continued her claims that she had not used performance enhancing drugs. Also, it turns out she was involved with a check writing fraud case involving her Coach Steve Riddick and Husband Tim Montgomery, that included depositing one of the checks in her account. Jones tearfully told the TV cameras outside the courthouse in White Plains New York that she had lied for a number of years about the drug situation and will be retiring from the sport. Sentencing will take place January 11th, 2008 in New York, with the two cases possibly being joined together in the penalty phase, the admission of lying about drug usage in a federal investigation and the check writing scam, with Steve Riddick convicted in a jury trial and Montgomery pleading guilty for the check writing crime. Prosecutors have called for a six month prison sentence for Marion. Needless to say we are shocked, but with all the people around Marion involved with drug usage and admissions to the same or failed drug tests, her association had always been close. There is obviously a tremendous ‘cat and mouse’ game that goes on between the users of illegal drugs and the testing, governing bodies. We remember the first manifestation of this game that we were aware of when out of the blue eleven athletes in the 1983 Pan American Games were caught for drug usage when it was obvious that improvements in the ability to detect illegal drugs had caught athletes from a number of nations in the ‘testing net.’ It was obvious that Conte and we are sure others have found ways to get around the tests, as Marion Jones has passed some God awful number of drug tests through the years with these actual tests taken very serious at competitions along the way. Athletes in Olympic level competitions do not leave the field themselves to go potty, but have an official accompany them to the little outhouse to do their business. Award winners go directly to drug testing areas, where I’ve been warned upon trying to shake the hands of an athlete after that whole scene, “I don’t know if I want to do that as I had some problems urinating as a part of the drug testing thing and we spilled some.” Also, I personally wonder how long these samples are kept and are valid, so as the testers improve their ability to test for drugs they can go back over old samples (or threaten to so as to secure admissions of usage). The whole scene has kind of wrecked my enjoyment of the Olympic level of the sport. Not that I think every level may not have some involvement, with I hope down to the high school level it is minimal. With Marion it is all so sad, as she has tremendous abilities in so many other human areas. |
