Don’t you love how world-class athletes, many of which treat everyone around them like dirt most of their lives, suddenly try to spin a new personna in the media?

Take former Olympic track gold medalist Marion Jones. She was a royal pain-in-the-patootie most of her career. The more medals she won, the more insufferable she became. She always had a sneer when dealing with anybody but a sponsor who was handing her money.

Now that Marion is about to serve six months in prison for lying to investigators about sterpod use and a check-fraud scam, she’s trotting out this “how can I use my story to change the live of a young person?” line. She was on Oprah this week attempting to draw a little public sympathy because as she said, “I truly think a person’s character is determined by their admission of mistakes and then beyond that, what do I do about it?”

For starters, Marion, try treating everyone you meet with respect and humility. You’ll probably learn that in prison.