Joseph Jones
Class of 2004
* 2 time All-State 1A
UPDATE!!! AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Tuesday, February 15, 2005 NORMANGEE — Approaching from the south on FM 39, the first welcome sign to this Brazos Valley town of about 700 residents proclaims it as "The Deerest Place in Texas," accompanied, logically, by a sketch of a deer. A second, larger sign follows quickly. It informs travelers they are on the turf of the 2004 state basketball champions. There's no sign proclaiming Normangee as the hometown of Joseph Jones — yet. That might change someday if Normangee's tallest native son continues his quick climb up the basketball ladder. Born in nearby Bryan, Jones has spent most of his life in Normangee, about 30 miles northeast of Texas A&M, where he is a freshman on the Aggies' vastly improved basketball team. From an early age, when he began to realize he was bigger than everybody else and loved the game, Jones worried that his beloved hometown might be overlooked by basketball talent scouts. "That's all I thought about for a long time," he said. "I'd do this or that in basketball, but I didn't think I was going to get noticed. I thought nobody was going to know about me and that I might have to go to a Division II or III school to be able to play." Fat chance. Guys who are 6-foot-9-inches, 240 pounds and average 22.4 points and 15.1 rebounds for a state championship team don't get overlooked. And, in Jones' case, rightfully so. Exposed to big-time basketball through the Houston Select summer AAU team, Jones became a hot property. He selected A&M because of its proximity to home, over offers from places such as Kansas, North Carolina, Illinois, Texas Tech and Texas — the Longhorns host the Aggies on Wednesday. Jones has made the transition from Class A high school ball to the Big 12 Conference remarkably quickly. He heads into Wednesday night's game against Texas at the Erwin Center averaging 12.4 points and 7.3 rebounds per game. It's a far cry from playing in the 200-seat high school gymnasium on the west side of Normangee that was his basketball home for all his life. But Jones has flourished while maintaining the same humble and respectful small-town politeness and cheeriness that has prompted first-year A&M Coach Billy Gillispie to often comment, "He never has a bad day." "The adjustment to college was tough at first," said Jones, whose conversation is peppered with yes-sirs and no-sirs. "Everyone was big, the same height as me. It was never that way at home." Nevertheless, Jones is beginning to thrive. He is the Big 12's leading freshman rebounder and is the only league freshman to average at least 10 points and six boards per game. "I was impressed with how poised he was for such a young guy," said Missouri Coach Quin Snyder after Jones scored 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting against the Tigers. "With him on the block, it gives them a balance they haven't had before." Alan Andrus knew he had inherited someone special when he arrived as Normangee's head basketball coach and assistant principal when Jones was a sophomore. Coaching in nearby North Zulch, a big rival of the Panthers, Andrus had already seen Jones' potential on a basketball court. What opened his eyes, however, was what he saw off the court. "Joe was always very respectful to everyone, and extremely conscientious about his schoolwork," Andrus said. "I remember his sophomore year and he had taken a test in Algebra II. He hung outside the door of that teacher's classroom like a big puppy after every class, wanting to know if she'd graded his test yet. That's just the way he is." Jones, who already has accumulated more than 30 hours of credit at A&M because of advance placement work he did in high school — he's on track to graduate in three years — had a reason to focus on grades. That reason is Betty Jones, his mother. "I think he's scared to death of her," Andrus said with a chuckle. Betty Jones, who raised five children — Joseph is the youngest — is a strict disciplinarian who installed in all her children at an early age the importance of education. "If I'd ever flunked a class," Jones said, "I'd probably have gotten a whuppin' from her." His mom, who has worked for 14 years for a Head Start program in Bryan, said Joseph often figuratively whipped himself if he did poorly in class. "He got a C in a class once when he was in the third or fourth grade, and he cried for a whole week," she said. "That was the last C he ever made in a course." Betty Jones, who stands 5-7 1/2, played basketball in high school and was Joseph's coach when he played Little Dribblers as a tot. "She was wild and she was hard," said Jones, who can still hear his mom yell above the din at A&M games for him to get more arc on his free throws. "We were little kids and just wanted to have fun or do anything, but she made us play the right way." Andrus also tried to improve Normangee's team — and hasten Jones' development — by playing larger schools in non-district games. But Jones' biggest leap came when he began playing AAU ball in the summers. As a youngster, he often spent summers with an aunt who lived in Arlington, and he played with a Dallas AAU team. But the eye-opener came when he joined Houston Select after his sophomore year. "I was always used to being the biggest guy in high school. I didn't know there were so many good big men out there," Jones said. "I'd never been exposed to so many people the same height as me who could do the same things I could do." David Salinas, coach of Houston Select, said he could tell early he had a diamond in the rough with Jones. "He was so much bigger than everyone in 1A; he didn't know how to explode and get off the floor," Salinas said. "The first time he went up with a shot at our practice, he had to eat it. That had never happened to him before." Jones also remembers his first practice with Select, playing with highly touted teammates like Cartier Martin (now at Kansas State) and Jawann McClellan (at Arizona). "They were doing their thing and just playing, because they were used to that kind of competition," Jones said. "But I was really struggling. It didn't discourage me. It made me mad and want to get better." Most of Select's players are from Houston. Jones and Darryl Dora, a Gonzales native who now starts at Texas Tech, occasionally were teased by their big-city teammates. "They'd say, 'You're country. You can't pronounce words right because you're from the country,' " Jones said. "But when they'd tell me I was country, I took it as a compliment." Gillispie, a small-town guy himself from Graford ("Joe and I have a bond"), said Jones is unique. "I think that he's not afraid of too many things, and he has great confidence for a guy from a smaller classification," Gillispie said. "To go from the smallest classification in our state and to be able to make a contribution — a great contribution — at the Big 12 level, you have to have a certain kind of makeup. Joseph has that makeup." Jones also has skills that raise the possibility of an NBA career. But no matter where basketball takes him, he knows that little Normangee always will draw him back. "I loved growing up in a small town," he said. "I'll always go back. That's where my family is. I'll always find some way to go back to Normangee even if I have to build a house there." Perhaps it will be near the sign welcoming visitors to the hometown of Joseph Jones. Obtained at www.statesman.com -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#30 Jones, Joseph
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* MVP-State Tournament