Light jukes and jibes with Wil Jones

Light jukes and jibes around Wil Jones

My flashy memories of our strong-minded basketball coach

By Jim Banholzer

Will Jones was the flamboyant basketball coach at Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax, Virginia during the mid-1970s. He knew from experience that competing at high levels sharpens ballplayers fundamentals; and devotedly followed this formula. In summer-leagues, Will actively sought out inner city ballgames to help our development, which ultimately led to the team’s success.

Will once even had his own summer league. I remember how excited I was the night before we left. I couldn’t sleep and then the electricity went off for a few hours. We took a school bus, way up to the Pocono Mountains, where I earned the moniker “Adrian” for wearing number 45 –the same number that star Washington D.C. native player Adrian Dantley wore in the pros at the time. This was a great basketball camp. We had morning hoop philosophy chats about how there was a time and a place for tomfoolery, but unless you were a Harlem Globetrotter, the basketball court was not it. It’s okay to go out and have a little off-court fun, but the second you step across that painted line, you’re to be serious, always. This camp held a lot of cohesiveness, as we all seemed to have the same goal: To enjoy yourself, while improving your basketball skills.

 

Me in 1976

One of Mr. Jones’s friends, Detroit Piston and future Washington Bullet star, Dave Bing visited our camp that summer. They talked about how once someone hid Mr. Jones uniform as payback for a practical joke gone awry, which resulted in his missing a game. Had he only scored his average that night, rather than riding the pine in street clothes, it would have entered him in the 2,000-point club. This was kind of a hard lesson for us young bucks to hear. After Mr. Bing gave a short speech about maintaining good attitudes and demonstrating his marksmanship shooting skills, he offered to play Mr. Jones in a game of one on one. Mr. Jones had been shrewd enough to wear his sandals that afternoon, giving him an out versus the NBA superstar. 

One problem with our camp was that there was a shortage of quarters. The only way to get a soda pop was through the vending machines, but there was no change machine at our remote site. Soon the valuable quarters were trading two for a dollar, as everybody was hooked on daily doses of Cokes and RC’s. One afternoon, the curmudgeonly cook, “Neighbor” (who we nicknamed such, because as he ladled slop upon each camper’s plate he barked “Howdy Neighbor!”) told a couple of campers that there were some quarters in the bottom of the drain at the swimming pool. Well this was some good news indeed and soon some players dove down to the drain, seeking this buried treasure. 

As I happened to be walking by the swimming pool in our break from the drills, I sensed a huge commotion. Turns out that Flip Atkinson opened the swimming pool drain screen searching for quarters and proceeded to get his arm stuck. Some older kids, had been pulling at Flip’s arm, but it only seemed like the force of their tugging made his forearm swell tougher in the drain. Sensing that these kids were stronger than I was, I didn’t see how my jumping in the pool was going to help, so I ran down the hill to Coach Jones’s cabin. I pounded on his door, yelling, “Flip’s arm is caught in the swimming pool drain!” Will Jones ran out asking, “What did you say?” And before I could even repeat the sentence, he trotted up the hill with the quickest sprint, I have ever witnessed. He may have very well been clocking 30 mph in this life or death situation. When I finally re-ascended the hill, Flip was still underwater and Mr. Jones and the others were taking turns diving down in pairs, trying in vain to unstick his arm. Finally, Flip rose to the surface by himself, apparently loosened by the last set of rescuers. 

They pulled him to the far side of the pool deck. It looked and sounded bad. Flip had been underwater almost ten minutes. As the camp administrators, applied Mouth-to-Mouth resuscitation, Flip hacked and wheezed in loud rasps, heard echoing throughout the camp woodlands. As he continued coughing up swallowed water, Bill Guild and I walked back to our communal hut. We weren’t sure that Flip was going to make it, and Bill started weeping. He said how he really loved Flip and remembered how they played together on the same soccer team.

45 minutes later, the ambulance showed up at our remote camp. They drove Flip to the hospital and we were left with the uncertainty of whether he would live. That grey evening as our group was called together for an announcement, most of us felt that he had not made it and were surprised to hear that he was still alive –though there was the potential for damage from the trauma of going devoid of oxygen for so long. 

Fortunately, Flip soon bounced back, living life to its fullest, enjoying basketball, good friends and parties with an improved sense of humor. He went on to become an assistant with the team, helping us warm up, often shooting ball and the bull with us, while offering general encouragement from the bench. I remember playing summer-ball with Flip at Police Boys club number 9 in Washington D.C. the next year. The opposing team consisted of athletically sharp looking and entirely black players from the inner city. We on the other hand were mostly white galoots, except for Mr. Jones’s nephew, who at 5 foot 7 was the shortest man on the team –and the only one of us who could dunk with authority! The opposing team chose to blare out some warm-up music from the gym’s boom box. It was “Play that Funky Music White Boy” by Wild Cherry. As the title line continuously refrained, I blurted out over to Tiss, a saying we had between us, “Play that funky music, fat-boy.” Keith Cross took this as being directed at Flip, and laughed so hard that he bricked his next six lay-ups.

Mr. Jones was my physical education instructor back in 7^th grade. Above and beyond the obvious athleticism teeming from the man, he led the class well with his broad background of cross training and phys-ed knowledge. The class was particularly impressed when he directed us in details of men’s ballet for a half semester. He also awed us off the record in the locker room; by showing off a photograph-rolodex pullout of what he claimed were his girlfriends. He had a lightning-fast reaction trick he would show off too, by asking anyone who thought they were tough enough to stand up to him, to squeeze his muscle. After seeing him demonstrate his quickness by “pretend jolting” the toughest young man in the locker room, you certainly didn’t want to be caught singing “Me and Mrs. Jones” in the gym shower. 

Sometimes the kids in the locker room would fiddle around with butane lighters. In this Virginia tobacco land, students were then allowed to smoke cigarettes in designated areas starting in 7^th grade, as long as they had submitted a permission slip from their parents. In this pre-Jackass era, showy kids would cup their hands together, fill them with gas, then light it and unclasp a fireball halfway across the room. Some even went as far as filling their mouths with butane and then creating a human / dragon fireball. This was another area not to tread, where Mr. Jones might discover your monkey business. 

During our freshman season, I once wrote an essay on why I thought Mr. Jones was the person I most admired in the world. When I unearth this essay, I will post it here. 

During the basketball season, Mr. Jones and the players would don their finest threads during game days. And Willie had some flashy suits. Once –as the story goes- he was coming out onto the court when suddenly the radio “color commentator” broadcast in a jazzed voice, “And now here comes Will Jones, coach of the Robinson Rams, wearing a pink suit and he’s juking and jiving and going to town!” Supposedly, this announcer was eventually let go for having made such an over the top comment. However, if this is an urban legend, I’m open-minded letting any of the glory-days WEEL radio announcers set the record straight. 

Willie left Robinson to move up the college level at UDC, where in 1982 he helped bring a NCAA Division 2 National Championship to the team, sparked by standouts Michael Britt and Earl Jones. I mostly lost track of Will Jones after the electricity went out for me in the basketball arenas. However, when I heard that American University retired his number 11 earlier this year, it reminded me of these legendary days.