As we all know, track star Marion Jones, considered by many as the best female athlete ever to come out of the state of California, was stripped of every medal and record time earned from the year 2000 to the present, and sentenced to six months in prison for committing perjury and for lying about her use of steroids and for her involvement in a check fraud scheme. With her sentence, Jones has been made an example of what could happen to an athlete who betrays the sports world in the era of steroid usage and lying about it.

What happened to this extraordinary talent who actually lived up to the promise bestowed upon her when she was a mere freshman in high school at Rio Mesa high in Oxnard and later Thousand Oaks high, both in the suburbs north of Los Angeles? She so dominated the sport at the prep level that she had to instill the services of the late Johnnie Cochran to fend off doping charges in the early '90s.

The shocking part to me was opening the program booklet for the 1992 California state basketball championships and seeing a full two-page article on her (even though her team had been eliminated in the regionals) when I had no idea she was an accomplished ball player too (over 22 points a game her senior year). Furthermore, for Jones to be recognized in the state championship program, when she was not even a participant, was a testimony to her incredible accomplishments as an athlete.

She was a long and lanky youth who could run like the wind. So what happened? Some theorize that it was a matter of the company she kept, like Steve Riddick, once a gold medalist sprinter himself on the '76 Olympic team. Riddick was an integral part of check fraud scheme for which Jones will serve time. I believe that to most definitely be the case.

Jones was the point guard on an NCAA championship basketball team at North Carolina in 1993, her freshman year, and some time after that she had broken a leg. Putting the pieces of the puzzle together would lead one to think that when she decided to concentrate on track and not basketball after the injury would have been the time to start using steroids. She might have feared she was behind the competition, having not raced for quite some time. However, it appears that this was not the case.

Jones dominated the sport as she had in high school beginning with her win in the 100-meter dash at the 1997 World Championships in Athens. But, she injured herself in 1999 and that is likely when the downward spiral began as she looked for ways to stay ahead of the competition with the help of her associations with Trevor Graham, the coach at the epicenter of the BALCO scandal.

All of the testimonies regarding her involvement revolve around the period of the Sydney Olympics of 2000. Who knows for sure, but Jones had to know what she was getting into. Or did she?

Many of the athletes in the BALCO scandal, such as Barry Bonds, speak of complete faith in their handlers and how they essentially took whatever they were given. We all would love that competitive edge in whatever we embark upon, but I can't imagine just consuming anything without asking questions or doing some research.

Did ego cloud her judgment? Did she figure that since she was Marion Jones she could get away with it, or did she simply figure if no one knew it would be okay? Whatever the case, it was a waste, pure and simple, for her to dabble in illegal substances in order to accelerate her rate of recovery from injury or workouts. Why? Because, with the gifts she displayed on the track, she still would have reclaimed the crown as the best. Maybe being patient wasn't in the cards.

We all are put on this earth with a special talent and her talent was running. At some point, Jones lost her way and made some horrible decisions. She appears to have accepted responsibility for her plight, but her' legacy is tarnished forever and, given her meteoric rise from a  prep star to gold medalist, it is indeed a tragic end.