Say It Ain't So, Jones

Paul Oberjuerge has these insightful words about Marion Jones in the Daily News:

Often, we gloat over the unmasking of drug cheats. So many of them are so transparent. So nakedly ambitious. Such sketchy characters, often pompous and arrogant and defiant in an ugly way.

Marion Jones wasn't like that. In an age when the confessions of a drug cheat should no longer shock us, and certainly shouldn't depress us, Marion Jones was different.

Marion retained the power to wound us, to shake our belief in the decency and honesty of our heroes.

We remember when she was the shining star of American sports.

Gifted and classy, dominant yet humble. A woman we put up on a pedestal long after it was safe to do that with any elite athlete anywhere.

We wanted her to be real. We wanted her to be clean. More than any druggie before her and, we suspect, more than any who will follow on her path to self-destruction.

I think Oberjuerge really catches the sentiment here nicely. There have been plenty of busted, doping athletes by now, in every sport. We should be cynical, and often we are. But we still like to hold out hope that this or that star -- especially the likable ones (no one holds out hope for Barry Bonds), will be different. We keep designating new "good guys" among the superhuman set, convinced that this one won't disappoint us -- only to be disappointed to learn, yet again, that the super-humans are only human after all, in more ways than one.