Jones isn’t the first sprinter to dabble in basketball
(Tulsa Shock President Steve Swetoha, new player Marion Jones, and Head Coach Nolan Richardson as the Tulsa Shock announce the signing of former Olympian Marion Jones. Photo by Rich Crimi, Getty Images)
In an unlikely side-story in the career of Marion Jones, the woman who was once the most recognized female sprinter in the nation has signed on with the Tulsa Shock of the WNBA. Jones, 34, was the starting point guard on the North Carolina basketball team that a won a national championship in 1994. Jones won five medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, including three gold. She was later stripped of all her medals after admitting that she had taken performance-enhancing drugs and also spent a half-year in prison for lying in a court of law.
Although Marion hasn’t played basketball in about 15 years, she is easily the highest-profiled woman to join the WNBA over the last ten years.
Jones is not the first sprinter to make a crossover into other sports. Back in the day, when the NFL and NBA drafts went more than 15 rounds, it wasn’t unheard of for teams to draft Olympics sprinters in the quixotic hope of them joining the team. In 1984, for instance, Carl Lewis was drafted by both the Dallas Cowboys of the NFL and the Chicago Bulls of the NBA (Lewis, of course, wasn’t interested in playing with either, and signed with neither of them). Even now, people talk about what it would be like if Usain Bolt -- the world’s fastest man -- were to play in the NFL.
See More:
