Jones Made Tracks After Dispute Over Her Personal Coach : Transfer: National-caliber sprinter left Rio Mesa High for Thousand Oaks after quarrel over control of her training.

Although Marion Jones refuses to discuss the topic, the standout athlete transferred from Rio Mesa High to Thousand Oaks eight weeks ago primarily because she has aligned with a personal coach--an arrangement that was unacceptable to Rio Mesa co-Coach Brian FitzGerald.

Marion Toler, Jones’ mother, and FitzGerald also refuse to discuss the transfer. But facts indicate that Jones’ primary reason for switching schools was FitzGerald’s reluctance to let the four-time state sprint champion run for the Spartans this season if he had no say in her training.

Elliott Mason Jr., a training partner of Olympic gold medalist Evelyn Ashford from 1979-84 and a former national-class quarter-miler, has been coaching Jones since August.

In addition to the secrecy shrouding Jones’ reasons for changing schools, furor on several fronts relating to the transfer has yet to subside.

High school students move from school to school all the time without notice, but when an athlete the stature of Jones changes schools, everyone seems to be watching. Jones is a national-class sprinter with a legitimate shot at making the U. S. Olympic team in 1992 and also is a standout basketball player.

When Jones showed how easy it is for an athlete to jump from one school to another without being penalized as long as the family changes residence, it opened a long-running debate on the high school transfer rules.

In addition, Jones’ decision to play basketball at Thousand Oaks raised eyebrows among those in the track and field community who felt that she should concentrate solely on track in an Olympic year.

Some argue that it is foolish to risk injury playing basketball with the trials--scheduled for June in New Orleans--only five months away. Jones fueled those concerns when she sustained a fracture in her left wrist and a dislocated jaw after hitting the floor during a Marmonte League game at Simi Valley last week.

The injuries probably will end Jones’ junior season of basketball, but she is expected to be fit for the outdoor track season this spring.

In the meantime, debate over both her decision to transfer and to play basketball continues, although Jones herself has refrained from joining the discussion, particularly the move to Thousand Oaks.

Track considerations seemed to outweigh those of basketball for Jones when she switched schools. Jones (5-foot-11), an All-Southern Section Division II basketball selection as a sophomore, joined a Thousand Oaks team that won the Division I-A championship last year. She was averaging 17.2 points and 10.1 rebounds a game before she was injured.

Mason will design workouts for Jones, 16, this spring when she joins the Lancer track and field team.

Thousand Oaks track Coach Art Green, who has guided the Lancers to four second-place finishes in the Southern Section championships since 1978, said he has no problem with the arrangement.

“From the beginning, (Elliott and I) had a lot of the same ideas about what to do with her,” Green said. “I emphasized the team aspect with him and he agreed. . . . The way it’s been handled has gone very smoothly and to my liking.”

Mason, 46, a counselor at L. A. Harbor College, ran a personal best of 45.9 seconds in the 440-yard dash for the Southern California Striders in 1968 after competing for the University of Redlands from 1964-67. After graduating from Redlands in 1967, he earned master’s degrees from Yale (divinity) in 1971 and from Stanford (counseling psychology) in 1972. He received a doctorate in psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology in 1974.

Mason said that he became acquainted with Jones’ mother last track season while attending several meets in which his nephew, Jeremiah Aguolu of Harvard-Westlake High, competed. Toler, who moved from Sherman Oaks to Oxnard in 1989 so that her daughter could attend Rio Mesa, approached Mason last summer about coaching Jones, and he accepted. He said he is not being paid to coach her.

“My number one concern with Marion is holding her back and not pushing her too hard,” Mason said. “I’m thinking about Marion and her health more than anything else.”

Mason said Toler did not spell out all the reasons why she sought a personal coach for her daughter, but he implied that Jones had been over-raced at Rio Mesa, pointing out that she had a stress fracture in her left foot when she won state titles in the 100 and 200 as a freshman.

“She shouldn’t have run with a stress fracture,” Mason said. “She shouldn’t have had a stress fracture.”

FitzGerald, however, did not know Jones had a stress fracture until several days after the state meet when X-rays revealed the injury. Jones was injury-free during the outdoor season as a sophomore.

FitzGerald’s refusal to let Jones run for Rio Mesa with Mason--or anyone else--calling the shots is not surprising, considering that he coached her to consecutive state titles in the 100 and 200 in 1990 and ’91.

FitzGerald guided Rio Mesa’s Angela Burnham to five state sprint titles from 1986-89. He is proud of what his athletes have accomplished during his 12 years at the Oxnard school.

“I don’t claim to have made these sprinters,” he said. “But I think I’ve done some things with them that have worked and I take pride in that. . . . I’m not a person whose ego is so big that I can’t learn something from someone else, but I also think that (Marion and I) achieved a lot last year.”

Jones was named Track & Field News’ 1991 high school girl athlete of the year, the first sophomore to win the award.

Her finest moment came at The Athletics Congress championships in Randalls Island, New York City, in June, when she finished fourth in the 200.

She missed a berth on the U. S. team that competed in the World Championships in Tokyo by only five-hundredths of a second in that race and set a national junior (age 19 and under) and high school record of 22.76 seconds at age 15.

In addition to her records in the 200 last season, Jones moved into a tie for second on the all-time high school list in the 100 with a time of 11.17, and her personal best of 52.91 in the 400 led the yearly national high school list in that event.

“She had a fantastic season,” FitzGerald said in late June. “She might have had the greatest sprint season ever by a high school girl.”

That was not enough to keep her at Rio Mesa, however.

On Nov. 20, she visited the Thousand Oaks campus with her mother, apparently working out the details of a transfer. The next day she withdrew from Rio Mesa and shortly thereafter enrolled at Thousand Oaks.

There had been speculation that Jones wanted to reduce the number of high school meets she ran in order to concentrate on the Olympic Trials. However, she said that she foresees no drastic reduction in the number of high school meets she will run.

“I’m going to try and have as normal a season as possible,” she said. “Basically, I plan on running in the same meets as I did last year.”

Some speculated that Jones transferred because she wanted to play for a top-notch basketball program. Although she led Rio Mesa to a 16-8 record last season, the Spartans, who finished third in the Channel League, are not in the same class as Thousand Oaks.

On top of that, four starters returned for Thousand Oaks this season, including Ventura County Player of the Year Michelle Palmisano. Jones would have been the only returning starter for Rio Mesa.

Al Walker, the girls’ basketball coach at Rio Mesa, disputed that basketball was a consideration.

“Her transfer had nothing to do with any dissatisfaction with our basketball program,” he said. “When she first transferred, certain people implied that that was the case, and it’s simply not true.”

Bill Duley, the Agoura High boys’ and girls’ cross-country and track coach, said in November that FitzGerald might be relieved that Jones had transferred.

According to Duley, FitzGerald was weary of criticism directed his way as Jones made her meteoric rise toward the upper echelons of the U. S. sprint scene last season.

Duley said that FitzGerald appeared mentally drained after the TAC meet, at which he was criticized via the grapevine by several track coaches who had never met him and knew little, if anything, about his coaching techniques.

Duley added that FitzGerald told him on a flight from New York to the TAC junior meet in Blaine, Minn., that Jones, who is black, was being maligned for having a coach who was not black. Mason is black.

“A lot of things went on,” FitzGerald said about Duley’s comments. “But I’d rather not make them public. The public doesn’t need to know.”

Although Jones might keep silent about her reasons for transferring, she said the move has gone smoothly.

“Everybody welcomed me with open arms,” she said. “It wasn’t hard adjusting. Everyone made me feel right at home from the start.”

Marion Jones’ Track Career

Year Age School Best Time HSL USL 1989 13 Pinecrest School 12.01 (100m) 33 -- 24.46 (200m) 26 -- 56.98 (400m) -- -- 1990 14 Rio Mesa High 11.62 3 29 23.70 3 30 54.21 4 46 1991 15 Rio Mesa High 11.17 1 6 22.76* 1 5 52.91 1 22

Finishes in major meets: 1990: California state high school 100 meters, 1st, 200, 1st.

1991: The Athletics Congress 100, 8th, 200, 4th; TAC Junior (19 and under) 100, 1st, 200, 1st; California state high school 100, 1st, 200, 1st.

HSL (place on U.S. high school performer list); USL (Place on U.S. performer list); * National high school record.

* CONTROVERSIAL MOVE: Leaving one school for another solely for athletic reasons often raises a question of ethics. C10