Marion Jones is taking another shot at professional sports—but this time it’s basketball, a sport she played well enough to earn a scholarship to the University of North Carolina. “I missed competitiveness,” Jones, 34, tells Kevin Blackistone at the Texas gym where she’s been training in hopes of landing on a WNBA roster in 2010. “I missed the challenges of participating in sports.”
Jones helped the Tar Heels to the NCAA title in 1994, her freshman season, but she shifted her focus to track and field thereafter. With all her glory there tainted by drug scandals and jail time, she’s decided to use the court to take her don’t-do-what-I-did message to the people. “It’s important for people to know that its possible to make a mistake in your life,” she tells the New York Times, “but it’s what you do after the mistake that people are going to remember you by.”
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