See How She Runs: Marion Jones and the Making Of a Champion

by Ron Rapoport

She has been called "the next great sports superstar." She's a world-champion sprinter and a national-champion basketball player. She has been considered the next great hope for American track and field since she was fourteen. At sixteen, she made the U.S. Olympic team. Nike has created a shoe for her, Annie Leibovitz has photographed her, and the world is watching to see if she'll be the first person ever to win five gold medals in track at the Olympics. Marion Jones is faster than any woman alive, but where did she come from and where is she going? Ron Rapoport's biography of the woman the New York Times called "the most prominent track athlete on the planet" is a remarkable profile of a woman not at the end of her athletic career, but at the beginning. It's the story of a season at the highest level of sport, and the triumphs and tragedies of Jones's quest to win four gold medals at the 1999 World Championships, the gateway to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Her story is also that of an American girl born into a society just beginning to make room for women on its playing fields. She played baseball, basketball. She ran. She grew tall and beautiful and strong. She led he college basketball team to a national championship. But it was running that she loved; she could run faster than anyone. Rapoport follows Jones from meet to meet during the 1999 outdoor track season, a witness to her domination. With unprecedented access to Jones, her colleagues, family, friends and foes, Rapoport artfully presents the stories of a world-class athlete whose quest began as the dream of a little girl.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2000

About the author

Ron Rapoport was a sports columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times for more than twenty years and also wrote for the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News, and the Associated Press. He served as the sports commentator for NPR's Weekend Edition for two decades and has written a number of books about sports and entertainment.

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

After months of piling bills and correspondence on top of this book, I finally got back to it and finished it. And actually thought about physically bonking myself over the head for waiting so long because it was EXCELLENT!!! I don't know if I loved it because Marion played basketball AND was a track athlete like my daughter, or if it was Mr. Rapoport's writing, or what. Maybe all those things. Whatever it was, I completely loved the biography of Marion Jones and am now compelled to look for more books about her career.
If you enjoy sports biographies, you'll want to pick this one up and give it a try! (Just don't put any letters or newspapers on top of it before you're finished....)

[Rosalyn Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

i was about 13 or 14 when i read this. i was awed by the fact that when marion was just 13 herself, she had her dreams planned and laid out before her while today, at 23, i've only just recently woken up from my own. the biggest thing we have in common is how human we both are...