Yesterday I witnessed the sorry sight of the great Marion Jones trotting in for a 55.03 time in the invitational 400 at the Mt. SAC Relays. Pathetic. But pathos is apt, considering her circumstances. This morning I posted a note on the Track & Field News message board recalling how the great Jim Ryun made a spectacle of himself in 1969, walking off the track in the middle of the AAU nationals. And what has this to do with masters? We’ve outgrown the drama queen thing. I hope y’all are running for the fun of it. Period.

Here’s what I posted this morning:
Pull that dusty bio from your bookshelf and turn to Chapter 10: Aftermath of the Silver.
Ryun tells how he was hammered in the press after losing to Liquori in the 1969 NCAA mile:
“I felt like calling a gigantic press conference, standing up and shouting: ‘What can I do to get through to you guys? I’ve cooperated with you in the past, always given interviews. But can’t you see that now I’m trying to establish some sort of normal existence? Don’t you care about Anne (his new wife) and me as flesh-and-blood human beings rather than merely the objects of your news stories and photo essays and editorials? Don’t we have the right to live without intrusions? Don’t you care that my sanity is being destroyed from your constant badgering, wondering what I had for breakfast last Tuesday or what workout I did a year ago last Friday? Can’t you … can’t you lay off and let us be?”
Later, Ryun writes:
“The major portion of the problem was mine. The press was not to blame but merely served as a catalyst bringing my own frustrations to a head. I was unable to to confidently say: ‘Hey, guys, I’m tired and I need a break.”
Two weeks later, at the AAU nationals in Miami, came the biggest pre-Marion meltdown in track history:
“I did not care a thing about remaining king. I was concerned with only one thing — getting off the track once my obligations were over with. I would gladly have handed Marty the crown at the starting line if I could have gotten out of the race.
“But I toed the line. The gun went off, and away we went.
“The first 400 was routine, but I was hardly thinking about the race. I was living in two worlds. My legs were striding along, but my thoughts were a thousand miles away. All the frustrations and conflicting priorities swirled inside my brain as I groped for some order in the midst of chaos. It was one of those slices of time when they say, ‘your life flashes before you in a moment. Something like that happened as I ran. All the ups and downs . . . the successes . . . the awards . . . the frustrations . . . my present boredom. . .
“Suddenly Anne flashed before my eyes. I was giving her nothning as a husband….. Here I was again — in a race that I didn’t want to be in, gutting it out as I had so many times this year already, indifferent in spirit about the outcome.
“How much can a guy give?” I said to myself.
“I needed a break. Yet I hadn’t discovered any way to get one up till then. Around and around the oval treadmill I ran . . . because that was what everyone expected of me. Because I was Jim Ryun.
” ‘Well . . . I’ll make a break of my own!’
“I can’t even say I ‘decided’ to do anything. It all happend so fast. It was a rash and impulsive response. No one had been listening to my pleas, and I knew this would get their attention. At about the 600 mark I simply had had enough.
“I stepped off the track and quit the race!”
OK, me again.
Yeah, I know, I know. A 400 is not a mile. A professional who is paid big appearance fees is not an amateur struggling to support a family.
But Jones at age 29 is not unlike the Ryun at age 22 who felt compelled to take a break. Both under a microscope while trying to live “normal” lives.
At Mt. SAC yesterday, I watched MJ’s race from the shade beneath the press box. I clocked her 200 at 24.1. Jon Hendershott timed her split at 24.4. But we both agreed on one thing — we were sure she was gonna quit. Just walk off the track around 350 meters.
Ryun did it. Jones couldn’t bring herself to.
What came next for Ryun?
Chapter 11: No solution
“If I thought quitting in the middle of the national championships was going to gain any sympathy, I was altogether wrong. As if Mexico City hadn’t been enough, now I had really added fuel to the burn-Jim-Ryun-in-effigy fire. I’d been outrun, outkicked, had’t set a world record in two years, had quit in the middle of an important race….. Jim Ryun was through!”
Me again:
Ryun announced his retirement. Then 19 months later, after starting to jog with his wife, the spark returned. He ran a 3:52 mile in Toronto in 1972 but was tripped in a Munich heat. He turned pro, ran a season indoors with flashing lights around the track, then announced his REAL retirement from track. (I covered the announcement for T&FN.)
Marion Jones is dogged by legitimate questions and serious legal issues, but she’s also human. And so I see her 55.03 at Mt. SAC as something more than an outtashape mom grasping for an easy pay day. She’s burned out, folks. Her mind isn’t in it. She didn’t pull a muscle. She pulled a Ryun.
Can she pull a Ryunesque comeback?
That’s the real question.