When It Comes to Arcadia Invitational, No One Can Keep Up With This Jones

Marion Jones of Thousand Oaks High might lack the national name recognition of some of the first inductees into the newly created Arcadia Invitational Hall of Fame, yet no high school athlete has accomplished more than Jones at the meet.

Neither Quincy Watts, the 1992 Olympic champion in the men’s 400 meters, nor Steve Lewis, the 1988 Olympic 400 champion and the 1992 silver medalist.

Not Mike Powell, the world record-holder and 1991 world champion in the long jump.

And not Valerie Brisco, the 1984 Olympic champion in the women’s 200 and 400.

Those four were among 30 athletes inducted into the meet’s Hall of Fame at Arcadia High on Saturday, when Jones won the girls’ 100 (11.48 seconds), 200 (23.49) and long jump (20 feet 9 1/4 inches), all with national season-best marks.

The victories were the fifth, sixth and seventh Arcadia titles for Jones, who finished second in the 100 and 200 in the 1990 meet when she was a Rio Mesa freshman. “I love competing in this meet,” Jones said at a press conference last week. “There’s just great competition and a great atmosphere that seems to bring out the best in athletes.”

Especially Jones.

Jones, who transferred to Thousand Oaks early in her junior year, has posted personal bests five times and seven national season-best marks at Arcadia.

She holds meet records in the 100 (11.38 in 1991), 200 (22.87 in ‘91) and long jump (20-9 1/4 this year), and she has the meet’s three fastest times in the 100 and three of the four fastest in the 200.

Her victories Saturday made her one of only three girls--Brisco of Locke (1978) and Denean Howard of Kennedy (1982) are the others--to win three individual events in the same year.

Jones, the three-time defending state champion in the 100 and 200, gave some of the credit for her long jump performance to Powell, who offered words of wisdom before the meet.

“He just told me to relax and accelerate through the board,” Jones said. “That’s not anything that my coach hasn’t told me before, but it tends to mean a little bit more when it comes from Mr. World Record-Holder himself.”

With her winning mark in the long jump, Jones moved to 13th on the all-time national high school performer list, and it could have been much farther had she stepped near the end of the eight-inch wide takeoff board instead of an inch or two behind it.

“If I can just hit the board properly, I think a 22-foot jump is possible,” said Jones, a North Carolina-bound senior who began long jumping only this season.

The national prep record is 22-3, set by Kathy McMillan of Hoke County (N.C.) High in 1976, but Jones avoided making predictions about how far she could jump this season.

“The sky’s the limit,” she said. “I don’t want to put any limitations on what I can do.”