This profile on AU men’s basketball Head Coach Jeff Jones was originally published in full on Schad's blog in October.
In March 1993, a reporter asked then-Virginia head coach Jeff Jones where he saw himself in 20 years. The round-faced coach took a bite of his barbeque sandwich and answered.
“I won’t be coaching 20 years from now,” Jones, then 33, told The Roanoke Times. “There’s just too much excess baggage to go with the job.”
That, of course, was before he took Virginia to the Elite Eight in 1995. Before the son of a coach surpassed his father in wins. Before he remarried and moved to Washington D.C. Before he led American University to a pair of Patriot League titles and NCAA Tournament appearances.
Now 52, Jones smiles at the thought of his 33-year-old self. He sits quietly at his desk writing a thank you card, sporting a black Nike pullover and a light stubble. Commemorative basketballs and pictures of his children dot the office. A Big Gulp on his desk has been reduced to ice.
It is here, nestled in a corner office overlooking Bender Arena, that the fiery skipper, the man who routinely screams at his bench and is hoarse by game’s end, is at his most serene.
“Some people would say ‘well, it’s just basketball,’” Jones said, explaining his job. “It is, but when there’s that many people that pay that much attention, it is your livelihood. And there’s a lot of stress involved.”
The Washington D.C. region has seen its fair share of collegiate coaches come and go over the last dozen years, from a fired Karl Hobbs to the retired Gary Williams. But before Wednesday, only Jones, who first arrived at American in 2000, had survived.
He did it by winning in a winnable conference, building a rock-solid program that has never finished below fourth in the league. Graduation rates on the team were high. Support from the athletic department had never been better. Jones was comfortable, and one year ago his contract was extended through the 2016 season.
“We love DC, and there’s a loyalty,” Jones said in October. “American has been very welcoming, and for me that’s a big thing: to be at a place where you’re appreciated. There have been other opportunities, but this is and continues to be the right place for me.”
The Daily Press reported Wednesday that Jones has accepted the head coaching job at Old Dominion University. The move will be announced at a Thursday press conference, according to Press columnist David Teel.
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Jeffrey Allen Jones was a strange kid.
His father, Bobby Jones, coached the Kentucky Wesleyan Panthers for 13 years, first as an assistant and then as head coach. Born in Owensboro, Ky. in 1960, Jeff was five when his father started coaching, and he immediately fell in love with the game of basketball. He loved watching his dad’s practices, soaking up the intricacies of the game for hours on end. While his friends were outside, running around or maybe playing basketball themselves, little Jeff was sitting quietly in the gym, observing the Panthers’ practice.
“I remember people joking around that I was a strange kid because I would go and watch his practices, and I would literally watch,” Jones said. “I’d go and I’d sit there and I’d watch, and that was a great day for me.”
Jeff didn’t love coaching, but he loved basketball. Surrounded by the sport, he took to the court and quickly became one of the best point guard prospects in the state of Kentucky. Hours of watching practices had taught him how to see what other players might miss. It made him invaluable.
After high school, Jones opted to leave his home state for Charlottesville, Va., where he was a four-year starter for the Virginia Cavaliers. He’s most well-known for playing alongside Ralph Sampson and leading the team to four postseason appearances, including the 1980 NIT championship and the 1981 Final Four.
When he graduated with a psychology degree in 1982, he had five job offers waiting for him. The world was his oyster. But none of those offers fulfilled his lifelong dream of going to the NBA, so he waited. After being signed and cut by two teams in a matter of months, his NBA dreams were dashed by Christmas. He was looking at two options: play professionally overseas, or return to Virginia as an assistant coach.
“Playing in the NBA was a dream. Playing overseas wasn’t a dream,” Jones said. “When that NBA dream kind of ended, I was ready to turn the page. And that’s when coaching became something that I wanted to do.”
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As a 22-year-old assistant coach at Virginia, Jones was given a lot of freedom and input in head coach Terry Holland’s system. The staff would hash and rehash and re-rehash a plan ten times before finalizing it, and Jones’ opinion was valued every step of the way.
He learned by observation and worked his way up the coaching totem pole at Virginia until Holland left to become the athletic director at his alma mater, Davidson College. In a controversial move, the athletic department picked Jones, who was 29 at the time, to be his replacement. He became the youngest head coach in Atlantic Coast Conference history.
“I don’t think there was any question that I was ready,” Jones said. “Maybe unknowingly, I had been preparing most of my life for that.”
Seven years, six 20-win seasons and five NCAA tournament appearances later, the wheels began to fall off. Three arrested players tainted Jones’ reputation at Virginia, and a losing record on the court certainly didn’t make things any better.
When leading scorer Courtney Alexander was accused of hitting, kicking and choking his girlfriend in June 1997, Jones ignored suggestions from his higher-ups in the athletic department and dismissed Alexander from the team. The move left a hole in the Virginia lineup and a growing rift between Jones and the administration.
Jones was fired after the 1998 season.
“There were lots and lots of great memories [at Virginia], and obviously when you fall short and you don’t do as well towards the end, those are the ones that, initially, you remember the most,” he said. “But I think we experienced a pretty good level of success. I’m not sure that Virginia’s been back to that level of success since.
“In fact,” Jones continued with a sly smile, “I’m sure that they haven’t been back to that level of success.”
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The year after Jones was fired was both the best and worst time of his life. He actually enjoyed his summer for the first time he could remember, spending time at beaches instead of hunting down recruits. But by October, the familiar itch of basketball season returned. Jones needed it. He desperately missed the sport.
He signed on to broadcast a few college basketball games with what is now Comcast Sports. But between those games was when Jones really took off. From early November to the middle of spring, Jones embarked on a whirlwind tour visiting the country’s best college coaches. He watched Gary Williams at Maryland and Tom Penders at George Washington. Bob Huggins at Cincinnati and Skip Prosser at Xavier. Rick Majerus at Utah – twice. Dave Odom at Wake Forest. Tubby Smith at Kentucky. College teammate Rick Carlisle, who was then an assistant coach with the Indiana Pacers.
Altogether, the coaches Jones visited have accrued 4,210 wins.
“It was kind of like my sabbatical,” he said of the trip. “Those guys allowed me to see inside – it was great. The thing I’ve always told people is you pick up some new stuff and new perspective, but it also sometimes reinforces your beliefs in your way of doing things. There’s a lot of different ways to be successful, and every place you went, you could see that coach’s imprint, their personality, their style.”
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Jones brought a style of his own to American when he was hired to resurrect the flailing program in 2000. In his first year, he held practices at 6 a.m. every morning to send a message to his players: the losing ways of the past were unacceptable.
Losing is as unacceptable now, more than a dozen years later, as it was then. Jones hates losing. Abhors it. And he makes it very clear to his players that if they lose, it won’t be for a lack of effort. Jones works his players as hard as anyone starting point guard Danny Munoz has ever played for.
“I think anyone who plays Division I college basketball is going to be a hard worker coming into collegiate athletics, but there’s another step that you really have to go to when you get here your freshman year. It’s not something that’s easy, at all, and he really pushes you to get there,” Munoz said. “Putting everything that you have into one thing is so important to him and that’s why I think you see a team each year at AU that plays as hard as it can. Because it comes from him.”
Jones berates his players during games and yells more than he talks. To an average fan this may look like insanity or a need for anger management classes, but for Jones it’s an outward expression of his passion for the game and his players. He doesn’t yell at them because they screwed up – he yells at them because he so desperately wants them to reach their potential.
“My style, whatever that is, is not for everybody,” Jones said. “But when the players know that the coaches care about them, and the players care about one another, I think that – in terms of their experience while they’re here – that adds a lot.”
Contrary to popular belief, Jones does have a soft side, too. He’s a generally easygoing person away from the court. He has three kids – Meghann, Madison and Jeffrey – and a spacious house in suburban Arlington. He’s a diehard Redskins fan. And in between practices and games, Jones doesn’t get too swept up by the pressures of basketball to appreciate the process.
“It’s kind of weird thinking of Coach Jones off the court because that’s where you spend the most time with him, but when we’re just at the hotel or the day before the game, he’s happy and jokes around with us,” Munoz explained. “He’s a laidback guy. He likes to have a good time and have some laughs just like everyone else.”
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It’s been 19 years since Jones was asked about how he would spend the next 20, but now the question is being posed to him again. He smiles at the thought and thinks about all that’s happened in the past two decades – the good and the bad, the firing and the hiring, the trips across the country and trips on the court. As he thinks, the fire-and-brimstone version of Jones slowly shrinks away. In his place is simply an aging man contemplating the future. With a healthy family and steady job, he counts himself as blessed.
The fiery basketball coach leans forward on the desk and stares straight ahead. His eyes are a steely blue. He’s never really had a plan for the future or a grasp on the past. But when asked where he’ll be in 20 years, this time around, he knows exactly what to say.
“God,” Jones says, “I hope I’m at a beach somewhere.”
