Jones, who was stripped of five Olympic medals, including three gold, she won at the 2000 Sydney Games after she admitted being on banned performance-enhancing drugs at the time, is looking to sign for a team in Europe this winter and then play in the WNBA in 2010.

 

She told the New York Times: "Back in May, when I got a call from someone in the NBA asking if I would possibly be interested in the WNBA."

 

Jones, 34, dismissed the approach at the time because she was eight months pregnant with her third child.

 

She said: "My reaction was 'Yeah, right.'

 

"I got off the phone, I thought about it a little bit, talked with my husband.

 

"I thought it would be an interesting journey if I decided to do this.

 

"It would give me an opportunity to share my message to young people on a bigger platform; it would give me an opportunity to get a second chance.I think I can be an asset to a franchise, so it comes down to 'Why Not?'"

 

Jones was formerly a top college player having initially turned her back on athletics to concentrate on basketball.

 

She led North Carolina to the National Championship in 1994 when she played as a starting point guard.

 

But she has not played competitively since.

 

Jones claims that any comeback, which she announced at a community college in San Antonio, would be part of a greater effort to rehabilitate herself.

 

She was sentenced to six months in prison after she pleaded guilty in October 2007 to lying to FBI agents in two separate investigations, a bank-fraud case being prosecuted out of New York and the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative case in Northern California involving performance-enhancing drugs.

 

Jones also admitted using banned drugs and was suspended for two years by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), which led to her announcing her retirement.

 

Jones was released from prison in October 2008.

 

She told The New York Times: "It's important for people to know that its possible to make a mistake in your life, but it's what you do after the mistake that people are going to remember you by.

 

"Are you going to make whatever negatives that happened in your life a positive?

 

"Are you going to disappear?

 

"That has certainly never been in my horizon.

 

"How can I use my experience, my story, to help people and in the process hop on this journey of trying to make a team?

 

"This is a second chance for me."

 

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]

 

 

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