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Hunter-Jones union was no farce
There was little shock in the track and field world when Marion Jones announced this week that she was separated from C.J. Hunter and would be seeking a divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. Differences? From the very beginning, when the public learned in the spring of 1997 that Jones and Hunter were a couple (they had met more than 18 months earlier, while she was playing basketball and he was helping coach track at North Carolina), the relationship strained reason to the breaking point. Jones, aside from being a spectacularly gifted athlete and voracious competitor, is also beautiful, charming and savvy. Hunter, on the the other hand, is not. The European media, as only it can, took to calling them "Beauty and the Beast". But it's not as simple as that. Someday track nuts will examine Marion Jones' (already) remarkable career. I believe they will find it hard to escape the possibility that from 1995 to 2001, C.J. Hunter was the perfect match for her. When they met, she was a 20-year-old kid who had big issues with both her parents (her estranged father and her passionate mother) and was under immense pressure to make decisions regarding her athletic future (basketball or track?). Hunter wrapped his bear's arms around her and filled a hole in her life, found her a coach (Trevor Graham) and kept the world away while she learned to fly. Some people will feel very smart upon hearing of the divorce. Had to happen. Knew it all along. The fact is, the marriage lasted 31 months, during which Jones won two world championships and five Olympic medals, became fabulously wealthy and famous, and ascended to the upper realm of celebrity. It is pigheaded to suggest that her relationship with Hunter had nothing to do with any of this. It is also a giant leap to predict that she will become better without him; fact is, she's pretty good already. The bar is set very high, and Hunter helped her put it there. Their relationship made many people uncomfortable right from the start, including Jones' family and closest friends. It made Marion's basketball teammates uncomfortable when Hunter, a fearsome presence at 330 pounds with a baseball cap perpetually tugged down low on his forehead, would sit alone in the stands at Carmichael Auditorium during practice, and then sit in his car outside the building afterward, waiting for her. Jones' basketball coach, Sylvia Hatchell, tried desperately to talk Jones out of the relationship. Hatchell failed, and it cost her a friendship with Jones. Marion's mother once suggested to me that Jones and Hunter were united by a mutual affection for rebellion. Maybe that explains their stubbornness. Jones and Hunter were married in the fall of 1998 and moved into a five-bedroom house in Apex, N.C. Soon after, they began building a much larger home in Chapel Hill. Jones became close with Hunter's two children from his first marriage. On the travelling carnival circuit that is international track and field, they were inseparable. Hunter acted not just as a companion, but as an ill-tempered bodyguard, and his nastiness was in sharp contrast to his wife's polish. People waited for the marriage to fail quickly, but it did not. At the world championships in Seville in the summer of 1999, Jones collapsed to the track during the running of the 200 meters. Hunter was captured on worldwide television, slamming a seat in anger, a response that some interpreted as inappropriate. They predicted that the marriage would fail, but it did not. Two days after Jones won the 100 meters at the Olympic Games in Sydney, it was made public that Hunter had tested positive for nandrolone during summer competition. It was a brutal public relations blow, and yet Jones stood by Hunter, who wept openly in proclaiming his own innocence and his sadness at hurting his wife. It would be eight more months before Jones announced the impending divorce, and denied that Sydney had anything to do with it. There is little doubt that Jones will seem more accessible to the public now that Hunter is out of the picture. Her every appearance won't be bathed in a 330-pound shadow. But she was always graceful and poised in public, save for the occasional stinging rebuke, which she managed to deliver with a smile. ("Polite condescension," is what one of my peers calls it, and that's accurate). Hunter's personality only occasionally seemed to rub off on her. I'm left with one image. It was in Seville, late on a Sunday night, one day after both Jones and Hunter had won gold medals in the worlds, Jones in the 100 meters, Hunter in the shot put with the throw of his life. Jones walked into a hotel alone and saw a familiar (non-media) face. Dropping her backpack on the tile floor, she put her hands out and cried, "Did you see C.J.?" Her face was alight. You can't fake that. You can't fake any of what they did together. Sports Illustrated senior writer Tim Layden covers track and field for the
magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Click here to send him a question or comment.
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