Scott McClurg/Journal-World Photo
Photo Gallery: 2005 Kansas Relays -- Friday
Events
The talkative Marion Jones, who avoided reporters last week after a last-place 400-meter finish at the Mount San Antonio College Relays, was back to her old self Friday at Memorial Stadium.
Jones spoke without hesitation about her struggles a week ago, didn’t hide from a question regarding her head-butting with BALCO founder Victor Conte and talked eagerly about visiting Kansas for the first time.
Jones will run a leg in the invitational 800-meter relay at 4:55 p.m. today, just before fellow headliner Maurice Greene runs a leg of the 400-meter relay as part of the Gold Zone. Greene also plans to run in the Invitational 100-meter dash at 3:20 p.m. today.
For Jones, getting back on the track is a must just one week after struggling to a time of 55.03 in the 400, placing her a distant last. She hadn’t spoken to the media since that dreadful day, but finally talked Friday about what went wrong.
“Lots of things,” Jones said. “It was just one of those things that can’t be explained. It didn’t go well for me that day. I had a little mental breakdown.
Scott McClurg/Journal-World Photo Photo Gallery: 2005 Kansas Relays -- Friday
Events
“I’m not concerned physically, and the coaches aren’t concerned that I’m physically not ready to run. It was just a little mental breakdown.”
Jones, 29, recently has had numerous hurdles, from giving birth to a son to her struggles at the Olympics last year in Athens, Greece, to allegations made by Conte that she used performance-enhancing drugs.
Jones never has tested positive, and since has sued Conte for defamation, but the controversy still hangs over her like a rain-filled cloud.
“I know that regardless of the outcome of that case, people will always be talking. I’m at that point where I understand that,” Jones said. “The reason that I filed it was vindication for my own self and my family to know that I’m not going to sit back and let my name be dragged through the mud.”
Greene, meanwhile, is carefree. The Kansas City, Kan., native is leaving the prime of his career, but he still has goals to maintain his self-described nickname as the G.O.A.T. — Greatest Of All Time.
His main goal is to reach 60 career 100-meter dashes timed below 10 seconds — a feat yet to be achieved by any sprinter. Greene currently has 56, and today’s race will be his first attempt of the season at 57.
“I’m proud of my consistency,” Greene said. “We have a lot of sprinters that are not consistent, that do things every now and then. But I do it every time I step on the track.”
Greene will run against several elite sprinters in the open 100 today, including J.J. Johnson, Jason Smoots, former Kansas University runner Leo Bookman and current Kansas City Kansas CC blazer Mark Jelks. All have run around 10 seconds flat, and some have dipped into the nine-second range.
Greene and Jones are the main event for the Gold Zone, a three-hour window of events starting at 2 p.m. today that include track and field celebrities.
Jones and Greene were Olympic champions at the 2000 Sydney Games, and both are hoping to return to the status of the world’s best. Each considers the Kansas Relays as one of the first steps toward the World Championships this summer in Helsinki, Finland.
This weekend, Jones is in the Sunflower State for the first time. Greene, however, is back home where he started his remarkable career at K.C. Schlagle High.
“It’s good to come back here and run in front of the home crowd,” Greene said. “A lot of people used to watch me here in high school, so now it’s good to let them come back and see me as a professional.”
Travis Jones learned to make the conversion from linebacker to defensive lineman as a player.
Now he’ll get to make the move as a coach.
Jones, a former linebacker and lineman at Georgia who spent the last three seasons as Appalachian State’s linebackers coach, will begin work Monday as Kansas University’s defensive line coach.
“It should be easy,” Jones said Thursday by phone from his Boone, N.C., home. “As a player, I didn’t have much choice. I played linebacker and got bigger and bigger and had to put my hand on the ground.”
Jones wasn’t itching to leave ASU, which went 10-4 last year and finished the season ranked No. 4 in NCAA Div. I-AA.
“In fact, I was looking forward to spring drills here,” Jones said. “But I really liked the (KU) campus. I liked the coaches. I just felt really, really comfortable there. I came here for my interview and called my wife and said this was a job I was really interested in. The fact I’ll get back to coaching defensive line really sparked the interest for me, and it’s an opportunity to go on and coach at the next level, coach at the next level for a team that can be very good.”
Jones is a 1994 graduate of Georgia who was a defensive line assistant at his alma mater in 1997, when the team went 10-2, was ranked 10th nationally at season’s end and won the Outback Bowl.
Jones is a native of Irwinton, Ga., and is married. He proposed to his wife, Melody, on the 50-yard line of Georgia’s Sanford Stadium at halftime of a game in 1997.
“I was excited to come to Appalachian State and coach linebackers, because it makes me more versatile as a coach,” Jones said. “Now I’m excited to come back and coach the defensive line.”
Jones knew of head KU coach Terry Allen from a co-worker who used to coach at Marshall.
“Marshall and Northern Iowa were common opponents, and I knew about the respect that coach Allen had in the coaching fraternity,” Jones said. “I’m looking forward to going to work there.”
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