I saw an advertisement for the new Johns Singleton documentary, "Press Pause," set to air on ESPN. I was glad to see that Singleton, one of the greatest filmmakers in America, was taking the time to tell Marion's story without the goofy hypocrisy of sports media. For some reason, the world decided to make Marion Jones into something unlike anything else we supposedly see in sports, even though any serious sports fan knows that doping occurs all throughout football, cycling, baseball and track and field. Actually, let me rephrase part of that sentence so you can hear me clearly: doping is rampant throughout the sport of cycling, but we want to believe our greatest heroes could never do such a thing.

I am not sure why Marion Jones was vilified so harshly during her doping scandal a few years ago. Sure she got caught using performance enhancers, but so do quite a few other athletes across America. Sure she lied about her decisions, but so do scores of politicians and other public figures. In fact, we all tell lies periodically and we all make mistakes. Why in the world some people decided that Marion Jones was the devil is clearly beyond me.

Marion paid a serious price for the controversy. She was stripped of her five olympic medals, went to prison for perjury and ended up in the midst of financial devastation. The world has taken everything from her and her life appears to have been in shambles. Singleton has been compelled to tell her story on ESPN and I am glad he's doing it.

I liked Marion Jones a lot. I remember reading about her when I was in college, hearing about this teenage girl running times that were faster than most boys I knew. She was truly amazing. She went on and had a great basketball career at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she took her first steps toward some significant life mistakes.

The first mistake I saw in Marion's life was her marriage to CJ Hunter. CJ was a world class shot putter and her track coach. But Hunter was seven years older than Jones, and seemed to bring a lot of negative baggage into their relationship. He also got caught using steroids after the 2000 olympics, casting a shadow of suspicion on his wife. Even back then, something didn't feel right about their union, and I don't think Marion's parents sent her off to college to date and marry her nearly 30-year old track coach.

The second major mistake I saw with Marion Jones was her affiliation with track coach Trevor Graham. Beyond being the person who is believed to have seriously magnified Jones' doping regimen, Graham seemed reluctant to get Marion the coaching she needed. Although she could have easily met her goal of winning five gold medals at the 2000 Olympics, her technique in the long jump was the ugliest thing I'd ever seen. Rather than getting the kind of assistant coach who could teach Marion how to jump fluidly, Graham seemed focused on keeping her to himself. As a result, Jones ended up with the long jump technique of a 12-year old girl. As a former track coach myself, I was saddened to see so much potential being wasted.

I don't care what anyone says, but I refuse to believe that Marion Jones is any worse than the rest of us. Yes, she took performance enhancing drugs, but I reiterate that the use of these drugs is far more prevalent than any of us might imagine. In fact, if the BALCO lab had not been raided back in 2003, we would never have known about all the athletes taking the undetectable drugs being developed by chemist Victor Conte. You can rest assured that Conte was not the only person producing undetectable drugs, and there are others out there just like him right now.

The point is not to condone the use of performance enhancers or to say that it's fruitless to try to stop it. It is simply to say that Marion Jones did not deserve to be mistreated in such a disproportionate fashion. Other athletes in sports across the spectrum (did I mention cycling?) do the same thing that Marion did, and many of them are considered to be heroes. When Yankees star Alex Rodriguez finally admitted to doping in 2009, he got off with a simple apology. Marion Jones' confession of the same thing led to her being identified by some as one of the lowest forms of humanity known to man. She didn't deserve it then and she doesn't deserve it now. I hope that John Singleton shows respect to Marion by giving her the public hearing she deserves.


Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a Scholarship in Action Resident of the Institute for Black Public Policy. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.