Marion Jones - Update
Marion Jones was sentenced to six months in prison today. She should count herself lucky. She lied and she cheated and today she has learned what the price was for doing that. Please spare me the crocodile tears for Ms. Jones. She has a husband, children, and family that loves and supports her. She has a college degree from one of best educational insitutions in the U.S. She is beautiful, charismatic, talented, and intelligent. Marion Jones is going to be just fine.
If you want to support Marion Jones, get ready to greet her with open arms when she gets out. Send her a letter or an e-mail and let her know that the black community still supports her even though she stumbled and that we as a community support her rebuilding her life, her career, and her reputation.
Stop making excuses for her, it just does not fly. Next summer at the 2008 Olympics, college track star and 2008 Olympic gold medal favorite Allyson Felix, will have to suffer through questions and comparision to the fallen Marion Jones instead of just enjoying her moment in the sun. Marion Jones has made it harder for every single black female track athlete competing now and in the future for at least the next 20 years!
Marion Jones hurt a lot of people, not just herself. Every young girl that believed in her and admired her. Athletes that missed their opportunity because she cheated them out of their chance. Not to mention the money and fame that she achieved through dubious means.
Stop comparing her case to white people that got off or saying that her public embarrassment is enough. She took the money and the fame, she can take the time. It is easy to be proud and supportive of someone when they are at their best, it is harder to be proud and supportive of someone when they are at their lowest. I still love Marion Jones and I look forward to her return!
10 comments:
Marion Jones has made it harder for every single black female track athlete competing now and in the future for at least the next 20 years!
THANK YOU. I feel terrible for young black girls in athletics -- they don't need this at all.
If Marion had admitted it on her own, in a crisis of conscience, I would have been on the front lines of the forgiveness crowd. I am in the forgiveness crowd though, just lurking in the back somewhere.
Was the 6 month prison sentence really necessary???
Isn't she a first-time offender??
She was sentenced to 6 months in prison and 2 years probation. I think that was excessive.
What I thought was SOOO messed up about the whole incident: how the runners that ran in relays with her would have to forfeit their awards also! I would be fire red mad, after all of the (honest) training someone has to do, just to forfeit a medal b/c someone else was dishonest.
I just wonder if this same thing is going to happen with Roger Clemens. I mean, Marion vehemently denied any steroid use also, just like Clemens...
prof. tracey said ="I still love Marion Jones and I look forward to her return!"
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and so do i! and i will greet her with open arms-though i still don't think she should go to jail-i have no tears for her or any 'guilty' person. she lied and they are making her pay with mercy for her. six months, it's just part of the consequences because she chose to change the direction and forge her own path.
it is what it is.
you made great points in this post.
Hi Professor Tracey,
I just hope Marion is going to be okay.
I'm not as sure as you are about the people around her. She hasn't made great choices in the past.
About her future, well she will be an outcast in Track, so I'm not sure how she will make a living; except to write a tell all memoir.
And about Allyson, she's one of my favorite athletes. I've followed her career since she was a high schooler. But her ex-boyfriend was busted for using performance enhancing drugs too.
That's the problem, I didn't want to suspect Marion because of the company she kept and look how that turned out.
So maybe Allyson does have some "splainin'" to do.
You are absolutely right. I really looked up to Marion and I feel very disappointed that it ended this way. Oh well.
Attorneymom,
She'll get out in three. She'll be okay. Also wasn't it perjury (not the actual act of cheating) the reason for the sentence? If it was, then she might have gotten off light.
Jones faced sentencing on two different charges, perjury and check fraud. She was a first time offender, but faced multiple counts.
I would be more forgiving if it had been just about lying about cheating, but the check kiting thing was just plain fraud on her part.
again, i feel it is her choice in the patners she is giving her life over to.
bad choices-being unevenly yoked with a person with no postiive growth-will kill all positives in you.
yes she made the choices, i'm not denying any of that-but the influence from devious, conning men (in this case), helped her fall.
marion is from a 'red-mud country' place here in NC.
but her mother raised her not to be the way we are seeing her.
her mother is a very good woman.
MDC -
She's definitely going to write a book. I'm not sure what her degree is in, but she could use that. And in a few years, particularly depending on how she does her community service, she'll be back in track somehow.
WTM -
I agree Marion's choice of partners is poor, but she's not mindless. She put that check in her account and she knew that was wrong. And she's an elite athlete, she knows she needed to ask questions about what was going into her body.
Whatever happens, I will be supporting her making it back.
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