Jones' apology sounds like another false start
08.10.2007 03:00
Sport and Travel
- Source: USA Today
At first blush, Marion Jones seemed to utter, and blubber, all the right sentiments with her admission, whiplash-producing as it was for some naïve souls, that she is indeed an Olympic drug cheat who also lied to the government about using steroids.
She apologized to family, friends and nation, deploying hackneyed but highly emotive phrases like, "I betrayed your trust," and, "I have let my country down." The disgraced track and field diva spoke haltingly about the "pain and hurt" she caused, asked for forgiveness and then, just like that, was gone without answering questions, retired from the sport that, she said, "I deeply love." Perhaps Jones, the once-charming and graceful athletic supernova, was auditioning for a new career: acting. If so, when the curtain of credibility is pulled back, I don't find much believability in her role of unwitting track and field marionette duped by rogue coaches and ex-lovers. Then again, the poor woman — more on the poverty part — had little choice but to cast into the pool of public opinion in hopes of salvaging a shred of integrity and, perhaps, future income. After all, she is only 31, an unemployed athlete with a bleak economic situation, if you believe her. In court documents, Jones claims to be all but financially busted. Makes you wonder what happened to all of those millions generated from Nike endorsements and other appearance fees. Where could it all disappear so fast … perhaps into an offshore account in the Caribbean? She is a citizen of the USA and Belize. With her career and reputation in shambles, and cornered by the feds with nowhere to sprint but straight toward a plea agreement, Jones took her pathetic case Friday to a weary and, I hope, wary American public. She admitted guilt for making false statements to the government relating to using performance-stimulating drugs and for lying to federal agents regarding check fraud. A prison sentence of three to six months is likely to ensue. But Jones also wants us to believe that she never knowingly used designer chemistry, that she was given a substance, "the clear," and told by her former coach, Trevor Graham, that it was flaxseed oil. Does the fictional drama sound familiar? In this instance, Jones wants an * beside her name. Poor thing, she had no idea. Her story flunks the smell test. Again. We're supposed to believe Graham gave her THG, told her to keep mum, then she was surprised to learn it was dope? There are other inconsistencies in her timeline and evidence of other illegal drugs. Whatever Jones is trying to sell, including contrition and perhaps the rights to her life story, I'm not buying. She should: Give back her Olympic medals. Give young athletes the right message. Give us the full story. The International Olympic Committee plans to step up its probe of her five-medal sweep at Sydney in 2000. She could be stripped of all five, including three gold. If Jones has any sense of fair play, she will do the decent thing and return the medals (regardless if some of the competition was no athletically purer than she was). During her mea culpa on the federal courthouse steps, Jones should have denounced steroids. She couldn't even bring herself to use the dirty eight-letter word. "Making these false statements to federal agents was an incredibly stupid thing for me to do," she said. She told us of her shame but not of a plan to rectify the wrong. That would have included an immediate strong public denouncement of steroid use by athletes. Of course, that would require Jones to first acknowledge that she knowingly and intentionally used them. Instead, she gave us an admission of being stupid by lying to the government, not a full doping disclosure. In a letter leaked to The Washington Post, Jones told supporters she wanted to "shed much baggage that has been tearing me down for a long time." "I want to share with you all my humanness," she wrote, further stating that she realized the "need to be up front and honest with you" because she had "tapped around the truth for too long." "I hope that one day I will be able to share with you, and the world, my struggles with certain things in my life. And in addition use my story to help direct, motivate and possibly even inspire young people to make better decisions in their lives." Sounds more like a desperate query letter to a book publisher to me. Still, that sort of touchy-feely stuff goes over well with the public, which is why Jones offered up her weepy "confession." She has only contempt for the system. Once the public realizes it, it will stop being conned by another one of our so-called American "heroes."
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