Shawnee Heights senior defenseman Jaye Jones had played few football games in his life when news trickled in from college coaches.
Jones only took up the sport last year, but his game quickly garnered attention.
Jones was best known as a basketball player in Shawnee Heights. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested in football. Jones said he was hoping to play earlier but his father wanted to protect him from possible concussions.
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Jaye Jones gets green light to play for Shawnee Heights Football
In the spring of his sophomore year, after basketball season, Jones finally got the green light from his father to try his hand at soccer.
As summer rolled around, he joined the team for off-season training. Shawnee Heights coach Jason Swift wouldn’t turn away a fast six-foot, 180-pound athlete, no matter how inexperienced.
“I was lucky enough to have coached him in middle school basketball, so I knew how athletic he was,” Swift said. “I said to him, ‘You would be a great football player. Come out.’
“He was a raw talent. Didn’t know much about football. But he’s a great kid. Very trainable. Works off his cock. We thought we could do something with it.”
Due to his natural athleticism, Jones shone in summer training. Understandably, he faced a bit of a learning curve after putting on the pads.
“I think everyone knew the tracks better than I did, but I was pretty good at the physical part right from the start,” Jones said. “I didn’t really feel retarded because I’m quite athletic. It probably took me a week or so. The pieces aren’t that difficult to learn, so after about a week I pretty much knew what to do.”
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Jaye Jones gets a crash course in football
It was in those first few weeks of last season what happened that can only seem ironic. Jones was injured. Notably, he broke his wrist in training before the start of the season. Jones didn’t realize the extent of the injury until much later and played it through. He found a seat at the security position.
“(Defensive coordinator Luke) Coffman actually suggested I play for safety because it allows me to move and play,” Jones said. “Honestly, I owe him the world. Without him I wouldn’t know how to play football. He taught me the coverages, how to cover, just how to play the game in general.
“Coach Swift helped a lot as offensive coordinator. He showed me how receivers indicate tendencies, how to tell if it’s going to be a run or a pass, what to expect.”
Despite a broken wrist and with only a few training sessions, Jones stepped in as a starting defender.
“As soon as he got out of here, he was like a fish in water. He was just natural,” Swift said. “He understands the game. He knows how to cover people, which he learned as a multi-sportsman. He’s just built by nature to play this game.”
Swift, Coffman and the T-Bird coaching team gave Jones a crash course in football basics in preparation for the season.
“If you’ve never attacked someone, it’s hard to just walk up here and be told, ‘Tackle someone,'” Swift said. “But we do teach the right way to tackle and once you’ve mastered it and gained confidence, it’s like hitting a baseball off the tee or shooting free throws. He kept getting better and better, of course, because of his work ethic.”
“Guarding people, especially much faster people, is like basketball,” Jones said. “Resigning was the hardest thing for me at the beginning. But now it’s pretty good. Everything else was pretty easy because it’s like basketball. Turn your head and run with someone, play the ball in the air. It’s pretty much like basketball.”
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Once the games started, Jones endured the mounting pains of learning a new sport and improved every week. Jones showed enough to win the second-team All-County by the end of his junior season from the Topeka Capital-Journal.
But some college coaches believe Jones has only scratched the surface.
“I was really excited when I started getting emails and texts from college coaches,” Jones said. “It kind of happened out of nowhere. I could hardly believe it.”
“That’s what makes soccer a great sport,” Swift said. “You don’t have to have years of training and a club or whatever. If you can get out there and block and tackle and want to be out there, you can do great things.
The wrist injury, found after the football season, knocked Jones out of basketball until late in the season. He returned in time to play in a few games. Jones said he plans to play basketball again this winter. But he is now fully dedicated to football.
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Jaye Jones was voted captain by his peers in his sophomore year
Jones leads the T-Birds with 28 tackles from safety: 12 solo tackles, 15 assisted tackles, and a tackle for loss. The T-Birds have dropped just 17.8 points per game en route to a 3-2 record.
“I just try to fly downhill as much as possible and hit everyone I see,” Jones said.
“His knowledge of the game has grown,” Swift said. “Early last year he sometimes lost his ‘key’, got caught up and lost focus on what he was supposed to be doing. This year he knows his job and is solid.”
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Swift pointed out that while Jones’ athletic ability is impressive, his leadership is equally as impressive. He noted that with just a year of football experience, Jones was voted captain by his peers.
“I think they saw the hard work I put in in the weight room and training in general,” Jones said. “As a captain, you have to try to raise everyone’s head, be a leader and work your hardest. Try to do everything right.”
Now that he’s excelling on the field and considering college opportunities, Jones said his father isn’t worried about injuries.
“He loves that I play football. He’s in every game,” Jones said. “He just makes me work my hardest at whatever I do.”
Tips or story ideas? Email Seth Kinker at [email protected] or DM him on Twitter @SethKinker.
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