Jan Boxill, a former UCLA basketball player and now a philosophy lecturer at North Carolina, teaches a class in ethics in sports. One of her Carolina students was Marion Jones, the basketball and track star who went on to win five medals at the 2000 Olympics.

When Boxill turned on the TV last weekend, she saw her former student again. Jones had just completed a winning anchor leg in the Penn Relays in Philadelphia. She was still out of breath when a microphone was poked at her along with a question about her ties to a California nutritional supplement company now at the center of a national steroid scandal.

What did she know about a $7,350 check from her bank account written to the founder of the company, Victor Conte, just before the Sydney Olympics? The New York Times reported that the check had been signed by Jones' then-husband, C.J. Hunter, a shot putter who tested positive for steroids several times before the 2000 Olympics.

Two California newspapers, quoting unidentified sources, also reported that Conte had told federal agents that he gave steroids to Jones and her boyfriend, 100-meter record-holder Tim Montgomery.

Jones, who lives and trains in the Triangle, denied -- once again -- that she ever used steroids. But the questions have come to eclipse her performances. Now her every move is seen in the light of something wrong or counterfeit.

Does Jones owe the public a fuller explanation of what happened with Hunter, whom she divorced in 2002? Or do the media owe her a stronger presumption of innocence?

Boxill doesn't have an easy answer for this sports ethics case woven from guilt by association.

"I would be surprised if she was doing drugs, but the cloud is there and she can't do anything to erase it except continue to say she doesn't use drugs and continue to win," Boxill said.

"Continue to win" may be the best advice. Jones' lawyer says she has passed every drug test in her career but it's possible something was missed. Nothing will be missed in this environment. Winning now is her best argument that she never needed drugs to enhance her performance.

Jones, 28, finished fourth in her outdoor debut after taking a year off to have her first child. She bounced back and ran well at the Penn Relays. From here on, she needs to perform consistently and well.

Jones could find relief -- or further trouble -- now that the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee has sought and received from the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco sealed records related to a federal grand jury looking into BALCO. Jones and Montgomery, the father of her child, were both called to testify in front of the grand jury.

Sen. John McCain plans to review the information and will attempt to keep suspected steroid users off the 2004 U.S. Olympic team.

Jones' camp is not worried.

"Transparency is our friend in this matter," said Joseph Burton, an attorney hired by Jones to help her through this period of skepticism. "Nothing in her testimony provides a basis for [the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency] to take action against her."

Dick Pound, chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency, often has condemned what he considered U.S. laxity on doping. Now that a "get tough" approach has cast doubts on U.S. track's biggest star, he said he hopes the record clears her.

"I have sympathy for someone who gets caught up in a general concern about doping," said Pound, a Montreal tax lawyer and longtime member of the International Olympic Committee, "but at some point, there's going to have to be closure brought to it. I don't know how you do that, and I don't know what evidence the McCain committee has got."

Asked how he would advise Jones, he suggested she defend herself vigorously.

"If the facts are you're really innocent, go out there and say that: 'I have given testimony under oath that I have never used these things. If someone says otherwise, let them come forward and prove it. Until that happens, I'm entitled to being treated on the basis of innocence.' "

But, Pound added, use that approach only if it's true.

"If the facts do not support that position," he said, "you're going to fall even harder and farther."

Boxill says her former student will survive this difficult period by running though it.

"She can perform at her best, that's what she can do," Boxill said, "and I think, knowing her, that's pretty much what she will do."