white is right
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Yes he is bitter at what happened to him, but there is grains of truth in this statement.....TAMPA - Here's the thing about weed, John Capel is saying. It doesn't shave any seconds off your 100-meter dash. It doesn't make your hands any more sure. It doesn't make you stronger, or quicker, or more invincible.
"It just makes you eat a lot," the former Olympic sprinter turned Arena Football League hopeful says.
Seven years ago, this was one of track's rising stars, the 200-meter champion at the 2000 Olympic trials and a gold medal contender at that year's Sydney games.
Now, a two-year suspension for a positive marijuana test has landed him here, in an anonymous booth inside a Channelside restaurant where the topic of conversation at the moment is the munchies.
All of it makes for a fitting portrait of an athlete at the bottom of a downward spiral. Except for one thing: Capel, 28, doesn't see it that way. Not in the slightest.
See, Capel smoked weed. And he'll tell you all about it, from the joint he smoked at age 8 to the four drug tests that he says he has passed since his suspension.
But he'll also tell you that he was "relieved" when he was suspended, that the world that he left when he tested positive last spring is far darker than anyone on the outside can imagine.
"If you want to know about a sport," Capel says, "talk to an athlete."
He'll tell you about athletes who would pay $50,000 every three months for their cycles of drugs. He'll tell you about the "personal doctors" that hung around the scene. He'll tell you about coaches that he says would bring sprinters to special "camps" for the sole purpose of "doping them up."
"Right now there is going to be a 10-year gap where kids won't get any better at track and field or football or nothing because everybody is going to go out there and try to run like Justin Gatlin or (others)," Capel says. "They are going to go out there trying that stuff. All that stuff was unnatural. ... Kids don't understand that."
He'll tell you about watching fans cheer wildly after a 2005 race in which Gatlin, who accepted an eight-year ban in August after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs, passed him.
"After that, when I crossed the finish line and I saw how the people reacted to him. ... I'm like, 'They don't know he's taking something?' " Capel says.
What does all of that have to do with marijuana?
"Weed was a fault of mine," he says. "I want people to understand, it is a fault of mine, but you can come back. You can come back from smoking weed. You can stop smoking weed, get back on the track, and you can compete.
"But tell them boys to get off steroids and come back to the track and compete. They can't compete at the same level. They've fallen off."
Capel says he isn't sure if he wants to return to track. He enjoys his time with his wife, Sandy (they met as middle school students in Brooksville), his two daughters, and his 5-month-old son.
Besides, he is convinced he can still play football (a seventh-round pick of the Bears in 2001, he was released by the club in part because of his marijuana issues).
Though Storm coach Tim Marcum says he thinks Capel can play, the wide receiver is probably a longshot: Receiver is the team's deepest position, and the club was crunched for numbers before Capel arrived.
But whatever happens, he says he wants the world to know this:
"If people label me a pothead, okay," Capel says. "But you know what? Once I grow out of this pothead stage, what can you label me as? But when Justin Gatlin goes through his whole life, no matter how old he gets, and Marion Jones goes through her whole life, no matter how old she gets, they'll still be labeled as cheaters. I don't have that label over my head. And I thank God for that."
[Last modified February 14, 2007, 01:07:28
"It just makes you eat a lot," the former Olympic sprinter turned Arena Football League hopeful says.
Seven years ago, this was one of track's rising stars, the 200-meter champion at the 2000 Olympic trials and a gold medal contender at that year's Sydney games.
Now, a two-year suspension for a positive marijuana test has landed him here, in an anonymous booth inside a Channelside restaurant where the topic of conversation at the moment is the munchies.
All of it makes for a fitting portrait of an athlete at the bottom of a downward spiral. Except for one thing: Capel, 28, doesn't see it that way. Not in the slightest.
See, Capel smoked weed. And he'll tell you all about it, from the joint he smoked at age 8 to the four drug tests that he says he has passed since his suspension.
But he'll also tell you that he was "relieved" when he was suspended, that the world that he left when he tested positive last spring is far darker than anyone on the outside can imagine.
"If you want to know about a sport," Capel says, "talk to an athlete."
He'll tell you about athletes who would pay $50,000 every three months for their cycles of drugs. He'll tell you about the "personal doctors" that hung around the scene. He'll tell you about coaches that he says would bring sprinters to special "camps" for the sole purpose of "doping them up."
"Right now there is going to be a 10-year gap where kids won't get any better at track and field or football or nothing because everybody is going to go out there and try to run like Justin Gatlin or (others)," Capel says. "They are going to go out there trying that stuff. All that stuff was unnatural. ... Kids don't understand that."
He'll tell you about watching fans cheer wildly after a 2005 race in which Gatlin, who accepted an eight-year ban in August after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs, passed him.
"After that, when I crossed the finish line and I saw how the people reacted to him. ... I'm like, 'They don't know he's taking something?' " Capel says.
What does all of that have to do with marijuana?
"Weed was a fault of mine," he says. "I want people to understand, it is a fault of mine, but you can come back. You can come back from smoking weed. You can stop smoking weed, get back on the track, and you can compete.
"But tell them boys to get off steroids and come back to the track and compete. They can't compete at the same level. They've fallen off."
Capel says he isn't sure if he wants to return to track. He enjoys his time with his wife, Sandy (they met as middle school students in Brooksville), his two daughters, and his 5-month-old son.
Besides, he is convinced he can still play football (a seventh-round pick of the Bears in 2001, he was released by the club in part because of his marijuana issues).
Though Storm coach Tim Marcum says he thinks Capel can play, the wide receiver is probably a longshot: Receiver is the team's deepest position, and the club was crunched for numbers before Capel arrived.
But whatever happens, he says he wants the world to know this:
"If people label me a pothead, okay," Capel says. "But you know what? Once I grow out of this pothead stage, what can you label me as? But when Justin Gatlin goes through his whole life, no matter how old he gets, and Marion Jones goes through her whole life, no matter how old she gets, they'll still be labeled as cheaters. I don't have that label over my head. And I thank God for that."
[Last modified February 14, 2007, 01:07:28