Marion Jones - Press Pause

Recently, former NBA basketball player Chris Herren was in the area talking to kids at the local high schools about his struggles with drug addiction. I saw a story on his visit and the way that he interacted with the students and was very impressed with the way he has turned his life around. Now he uses his story to try to keep others from following the same path.

I decided to watch the 30 for 30 documentary that ESPN Films put together about his story called Unguarded. I started watching one evening and ended up finishing it on a Saturday morning. My kids were around and started watching it as well. It's always interesting to see things through a child's perspective. They had a lot of questions. The one that my son has been asking me for a while is, "Why would anyone even take drugs?"  It's not an easy question to answer, but I usually tell him that it is because there is something in the drug that the person wants to benefit from. I also explain that not all drugs are bad, but in the case of how they refer to drugs in school, most of those drugs illegal or "bad".

The other night my wife had to work late so it was just me and the kids. I asked if they wanted to watch another one of the documentaries about a girl who won a bunch of Olympic medals and had to give them back for cheating. They both said they wanted to watch it (which is a miracle for them to agree on something) so I found it on Netflix and we started to watch. 

I won't go into it too much, but Marion Jones: Press Pause is about the aftermath of Marion Jones admitting that she took steroids. She had to return her five Olympic medals and spend six months in prison for lying to federal investigators about her involvement with BALCO (Bay Area Lab Co-op) and a check fraud scam. The documentary was directed by John Singleton (Boys in the Hood) so I thought it would be pretty good. They didn't really go into too much detail about Jones' track career and the steroid use. It was mainly focused on her jailtime and how she was trying to get back to a normal life.

I don't think this documentary was really all that well done, but it did lead to some good discussion with the kids. It makes you ask the question about how far you would go to gain an edge if you don't think that anyone will find out. The message that I hope the kids got from it is that the the short-term gains are not worth the long-term consequences. Marion Jones won five Olympic medals, which probably felt great to her at the time. Now all of that is gone and her reputation is ruined. She will go down in history as a cheater, much the same as what Lance Armstrong is going through right now.

Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will.  

       - John D. MacDonald