Marion Lois Jones born October 12, 1975, also known as Marion Jones-Thompson, is a former world champion track and field athlete. She won five medals at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia but has since agreed to forfeit all medals and prizes dating back to September 2000 after admitting that she took performance-enhancing drugs.
The last time Marion Jones played competitive basketball was in 1997. Now, 13 years, five stripped Olympic medals and one prison term later, the former track star will make a return to the sport.
Jones signed a one-year contract with the WNBA’s Tulsa Shock on Tuesday. In December she announced her intentions to play in the women’s professional basketball league, but assumed she’d have to play in Europe first as a tune-up. Shock head coach and general manager Nolan Richardson didn’t think so. He worked out Jones over the weekend and signed her to the rookie’s minimum, $35,000, today.
The same year Richardson and the Razorbacks were cutting down the nets, Jones was the freshman point guard on the North Carolina women’s basketball team that went 33-2 and won a national title of its own. She started all four seasons in Chapel Hill before leaving the sport in 1997 to focus on her track career.
The fastest woman on Earth, and arguably the best female athlete in the world, Marion Jones can outrun just about anyone on the track. But she wasn’t able to escape the heartbreak and anger that marred her childhood. Jones vented her grief and anger on the track. In 1991, at age 15, she ran the 200 meters in 22.87 seconds, breaking the national high school record. She faltered later that year at the TAC Nationals, placing fourth in the 200 and eighth in the 100. Coaches were awed by her potential, however, and came knocking. Her mother hired Elliott Mason as a private coach.
