So now Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery have been implicated in the steroid scandal involving Dr. Feel Good of San Francisco.
This revelation from the New York Times hardly comes as a shock, judging by the company Jones has kept in the past, notably an ex-husband who was a steroid flunky going into the 2000 Sydney Games.
Guilt by association is not a fair proposition, except perhaps in track and field, where all too many of the competitors are considered guilty until proven innocent by a test.
C.J. Hunter, the one-time shot-putter and husband to Jones, came up dirty in four tests prior to the Sydney Games, which baffled him and tainted his partner at the time.
Jones denied the implications then, just as she denies them now.
Not unlike her ex-husband, she is baffled herself, in particular with a $7,350 check that was drawn from her account and sent to the dubious party before the Sydney Games.
How did that significant debit get into her checking account, and why has it taken four years and a federal probe to alert her to the news that she is at least guilty of sloppy bookkeeping?
“I never signed, endorsed, agreed upon or sent any checks to BALCO,” Jones said.
That is her contention for now, perhaps destined to be refined as the investigation proceeds ahead.
Jones has developed the unlucky habit of being connected to men who carry the whiff of suspicion. Montgomery is the latest man to be at her side, although they are not legally joined at the hip.
Jones has a lot to lose besides a reputation, given her ubiquitous endorsement presence with Nike.
She is the shining star of track and field in America, the most well-known female athlete of the day.
A side trip to the WNBA would not provide this ex-collegiate basketball player with the same marketing platform as a romp in Athens this summer.
The smoke emanating from the investigation is becoming ever harder to ignore, with the names billowing in the sky like a who’s who in sports. The layers of competitive deceit won’t be removed until many of the birds feel an urge to sing and investigators have finished sifting through the various paper trails.
A $7,350 check, hardly chump change, is a curious piece of paper that challenges Jones in a way that no sprinter could. It beats her how it showed up in her account. Darn. It is the paper equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle. It is a mystery.
That explanation goes down easier with the national press than it does with federal investigators.
An unexpected $7,350 debit in a bank statement is apt to outrage most people, even one as wealthy as Jones, assuming she understands the basic principles of a checking account.
Jones has admitted in the past to having a “conversation or two” with Victor Conte, the founder of BALCO. Yet she maintains she never has had any other dealings with Conte or his company, excluding the $7,350 check that was traced from her account to BALCO.
Reports indicate the check could have been the handiwork of Hunter, a dynamic that lends an air of plausible deniability to the one with the vastly superior earning power.
America does not fall in love with shot-putters. As the heir to the late Florence Griffith-Joyner, Jones was christened a media darling before she ever landed in Sydney.
That is one theory anyway. There is no shortage of theories at this point in the investigation.
Jones says she has not been in recent communication with Hunter. That is an omission she might want to rectify. They clearly have a lot to discuss, whether it involves a check Jones claims she did not authorize or the investigation that has re-united the former couple.
The prospect before Jones is not appealing.
The investigation has spit out Jones and her boyfriend, along with the ex-husband and a check looking to be adopted by someone, anyone.
Jones could be as clean as she claims to be and merely guilty of incredibly poor judgment.
Until the investigation has been completed, however, Jones stands among the rest of the big names, with a story that hardly passes the smell test.
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