Dear Marion: Please come clean

Dear Marion,

You always did have chutzpah.

Let us recall your 2004 autobiography: "I have always been unequivocal in my opinion," you wrote there, and in big red capital letters. "I am against performance-enhancing drugs. I have never taken them and I never will take them."

We both know I've been critical of you before. There's more criticism here, too.

But there's more than just criticism here, because while you've been one of the most accomplished liars to grace the world's sporting stage in recent memory, and while you're an admitted cheater, and this idea of yours that you might want to play basketball ought to be given a proper burial before it goes much farther, I actually thoroughly agree with you about one point.

You say you have a lot to teach kids.

And you do.

But to do that, you have to do the one thing that seems to have eluded you since you and I first encountered each other, which is going on 10 years now. 

You have to come clean.

Fully and completely.

As always, I'm standing by. As ever, I would be delighted to take your call.

In the meantime, about that basketball thing, which you disclosed in an article written by New York Times columnist William Rhoden earlier this week, you said, "I thought it would be an interesting journey if I decided to do this. It would give me an opportunity to share my message to young people on a bigger platform. It would give me an opportunity to get a second chance. I think I can be an asset to a franchise, so it comes down to, Why not? Really. Why not?"

Well, why?

Just kind of wondering here whether this basketball thing might be a final gasp at turning the spotlight yet again toward you, which you've always seemed to like when it's on your terms.

Or whether there's no book deal in the aftermath of your prison time, and you're maybe looking for a way to avoid a real job like the rest of us have. I think back to that conference call a few years ago when I asked you about the details of a $7,350 check written on your account to BALCO -- your representatives said it had been signed by an ex-husband, C.J. Hunter -- and you  said, well, Alan, maybe $7,000 is a lot of money to you but it's not to me.

And now?

But back to that basketball trial balloon -- I'm also wondering what your potential teammates might think about having you there with them, or whether you would care about that facet of this, or whether this basketball thing is just a way to be, as has often been the case, all about you. Because, as is documented, could you say you've been a model teammate?

Your teammates from the 1,600- and 400-meter relays at the 2000 Sydney Games are even now waiting to hear whether they get to keep the medals won there on the track -- medals that you've put in jeopardy because you were doping. The Court of Arbitration for Sport is due by the middle of this month to issue a ruling.

Marion, we Americans are a forgiving bunch. You are fully entitled not just to that second chance but to a 14th chance, and a 15th chance, or however many it takes.

To earn that renewal, however, someone who has transgressed has to acknowledge the conduct at issue.

In your case, that means you ought to describe in detail everything you did while you were cheating your way to those five medals from the Sydney Olympics in 2000 -- medals you've personally forfeited.

That means not just what you did, but when, and how, and why.

Oh -- and not just anything you did to and through Sydney.

Anything, anywhere. And who helped you. And anything else you know about the use of performance-enhancing drugs in track and field.

Yes, when cornered two years ago by the feds, you finally copped to the use of performance-enhancing drugs. And, yes, you have served time behind bars.

But even the judge who sentenced you suggested you could be more forthcoming.

You told Rhoden about the "critical moment" when you were interviewed by federal agents and opted to lie about your doping and what you knew about check fraud: "Within 20-30 seconds - it wasn't longer than that - I made the choice that I wasn't going to tell the truth. It's that one moment. Many people can't trace a turning point in their lives to one moment. I can."

This is what's so confounding about you, Marion. It's not about that one "turning point" or those "20-30 seconds."

The real "turning point" was when you decided to begin doping in the first instance. What about that?

Why would someone obviously so gifted, a woman whose speed and grace would prompt gasps from the stands, turn to doping?

Was it something as mundane as the track schedule in Sydney -- did you look at it and think to yourself, no way I can win all the medals I want to win in such a compressed number of days?

Or did the decision to cheat speak to something deeper in your soul?

Since you typically have been eloquent, your use of language with Rhoden seems awfully instructive.

You told him, "It’s important for people to know that it’s possible to make a mistake in your life, but it’s what you do after the mistake that people are going to remember you by. Are you going to make whatever negatives that happened in your life a positive? Are you going to disappear? That has certainly never been in my horizon. How can I use my experience, my story, to help people and in the process hop on this journey of trying to make a team?"

What you did is not a "mistake." Taking performance-enhancing drugs for an extended period, and then repeatedly lying about it, a massive cover-up, is not a "mistake," a word that strongly suggests a one-time event.

What you did was deliberate, and long-running, as U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas said as well in sentencing you, emphasizing that your behavior was not "a momentary lapse in judgment or a one-time mistake but instead a repetition of an attempt to break the law."

Which, behind the scenes, you apparently seemed awfully casual about. As your former partner, Tim Montgomery, the father of one of your children, evocatively described it in a recent interview with The Times, the British newspaper, the two of you kept your drugs in the refrigerator “next to the vegetables.”

Montgomery also said about you, "She could make herself cry for the cameras. Her best work was when she passed a lie detector test."

This is the crux of the matter, Marion.

Which is why I urge you: For your own sake, and then for the sake of the kids you say you want to reach, please come clean.

Victor Conte, who ran BALCO, put it this way when I asked for his response to your remarks in the New York Times:

"I am saddened that Marion Jones continues to tell a half-truth and has refused to fully accept responsibility for her past use of drugs. She has still not acknowledged that she knowingly used drugs, which I know that she did. Marion claims that others misled her by telling her that the substances were legal. This is simply not true. Marion knowingly used drugs and I'm sure she knows it was a mistake. But, I believe Marion is continuing to make a mistake by not coming forward with the entire truth.

"Her message to kids called the 'Take a Break' program advises them to think before they lie or cheat. I would like to see Marion follow her own advice and tell the entire truth about her past use of drugs. I've made very serious mistakes myself and I know how difficult it can be to accept responsibility for the hurt that you have caused others. I would truly like to see Marion make a difference in the lives of as many kids as possible, but I think she would be more effective by following her own advice."

Me, too.

Best, Alan