Appropriate for both, yes. Perhaps CJF posts articles like this for his players to read. Jimmy would probably be a great speaker to have in for the team to glean some insight and wisdom from his life experiences.
Thank you for posting the article!I believe I got everything in the article....if not below is the link
The article has several videos of Jimmy Jones that aren't copied here.
Jimmy Jones, 50 years after he left for USC: on McKay, Bama-1970 and helping to break the QB color barrier
By David Jones | djones@pennlive.com
August 27, 2018, 6:00AM
PennLive
PENN STATE FOOTBALL
Jimmy Jones, 50 years after he left for USC: on McKay, Bama-1970 and helping to break the QB color barrier
Posted August 27, 2018 at 06:00 AM | Updated August 27, 2018 at 10:26
Jimmy Jones calls signals in his first varsity college game for the Southern California Trojans, a 31-21 win at Nebraska on Sept. 20, 1969.
Sports Illustrated photo
Fifty years ago this month, Jimmy Jones stood at Harrisburg International Airport with his parents John and Pauline, all wearing brave faces. It’s a scene that plays out thousands of times every August as 18-year-olds leave the nest for college for the first time.
“It was the same feeling a lot of parents have when their children are leaving the nest for the first time,” said Jones, now 68. “Plus, there was that distance there was between Harrisburg and Los Angeles, California.”
Jones had been offered and accepted a grant-in-aid to attend the University of Southern California and play football. As a well-known American would say 11 months later after a somewhat longer trip, it was “one giant step for a man.” And to Jones, it might as well have felt like a trip to the moon:
“I’d made a choice to go 3,000 miles away from home. And you have absolutely no family or any support system out there. It’s like, are you kidding me, you’re going to school that far away?”
Jimmy Jones, now 68, is interviewed on Wednesday at Italian Lake in Harrisburg.
PennLive/David Jones
In fact, his father tested his resolve over the summer by saying straight out more than once, “I really don’t think you should go out there.” But his son stood firm. And then the big day arrived:
“That day you leave, it’s kind of that solemn, somber moment where you’re feeling your own fears and anxieties about whether you’re making the right choice. And your parents are going through the same thing on the other side – you’re going but I really don’t want you to go."
Go, he did. And college football changed in a profound way. Because Jimmy Jones was the right man at the right time.
The young quarterback, who had led John Harris High to the final two of three straight undefeated seasons (1965-67) during his varsity tenure, wasn’t simply taking a long trip far from home. He became one of the very first black quarterbacks to start and thrive at a major college football program. He started for three consecutive years (1969-71) and his Southern California Trojans went 22-8-2 including an unbeaten season and Pac-8 championship and No. 3 national ranking his sophomore year, marred only by a 14-14 tie at Notre Dame.
Jimmy Jones discusses the turbulent year of 1968 and race relations in America at that time.
PennLive/David Jones
Jones wasn’t the only one from the Harrisburg area who blazed this trail. At a time when African-Americans were not allowed to participate in collegiate athletics at all through a large swath of the South and were subtly discouraged or minimized in other regions, two other midstate high school greats soon played QB at major colleges as well: William Penn’s Mike Cooper started the first several games of the 1970 season at Penn State. And Middletown’s Clifton Brown shared time as the starter at Notre Dame in 1971.
Three young black men, all starting at quarterback for major college programs at a time when, to that date, you could count such African-American starting QBs in all of preceding history on both hands. All three essentially from the same town? It’s an amazing story, but it’s true.
“I never really looked at it from that angle until this story,” said Jones last week. “It’s really remarkable. If we were to look at the number of African-American quarterbacks who were playing the at major-college Division I-A level, you might have had 10 or so who might have played period.”
I checked. And, as well as I can research it, the number before Jones enrolled at USC, was actually 7. So, what he, Cooper and Brown accomplished as three from the same town is nothing short of mind-boggling.
Mike Cooper (25) started at quarterback for Joe Paterno in the first half of the 1970 season and then shared time with Bob Parsons. After five games, the coach benched both in favor of John Hufnagel who eventually became an All-American.
Penn State Univ.
I originally intended this to be a celebration of that story, half a century later. Cooper, who still lives in the Harrisburg area, cordially declined to be interviewed. And Brown died in 2012. Click here for the obituary I did on him six years ago.
So, I’ve depended here on Jones to explain and describe what it was like to be nothing less than a pioneer at a time when the quarterback position was irrationally considered to be the bastion of white men only. That was also true of middle linebacker, center and free safety, the leadership positions of football lined up along the middle of the field.
Why? Reflecting the racist stereotypes of the era, those positions were considered by head coaches, general managers and owners – all of whom were white – to be unsuitable for African-Americans who they mostly viewed as ill-adapted to think quickly and make decisions under pressure. At least that was the boilerplate rationale offered up at the time. Who knows how much of the discrimination was simply pure racism?
“That stigma certainly existed,” said Jones. “I felt it was unjust, that it should be overcome. And it was probably part of the driving force that led me to play quarterback.”
The quarterback position, by strict definition, didn’t really emerge until the late 1940s when it replaced the Single Wing tailback as the player who most often threw forward passes. Considering that, and the fact that the major-college designation was rather amorphous until the 1950s, I’ve distilled the list of starting, black major-college quarterbacks before Jimmy Jones in 1968 to seven men – and even this list is generous in definition:
- George Taliaferro led Indiana in passing in 1948 and is generally recognized as the NFL’s first black quarterback even though he was more like a Wildcat running back both at IU and in the pros.
- Bernie Custis played quarterback at Syracuse from 1948-50 before snubbing Paul Brown who wanted to make him a Cleveland Browns DB and going on to become the first black QB in what eventually became the Canadian Football League with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
- Willie Thrower – yes, honest, that was his real name – was a groundbreaker. He not only started but starred while leading Michigan State to the 1952 national championship. He later served as George Blanda’s back-up with the Chicago Bears and even replaced him for much of a game (and played quite well, by all accounts) when coach George Halas became frustrated with Blanda’s play. But he never was afforded a genuine chance to start in the NFL.
- Sandy Stephens, from Uniontown, Pa., is the last man to lead the Minnesota Gophers to the Rose Bowl. If you think that was a long time ago, it was – 1961 – representing the longest current Pasadena dry spell in the Big Ten. Stephens actually led the Gophers to back-to-back Rose Bowls including a 17-7 loss to Washington after the 1960 season and a 21-3 win over UCLA after the 1961 season. He won Big Ten MVP in 1961 and remains a legendary figure in Minneapolis. Drafted by Paul Brown, he never got a shot to play QB with the Browns and ended up doing so with the Montreal Alouettes of the CFL.
The aptly named Willie Thrower was perhaps the first man who genuinely could be called a major-college black quarterback. A single-wing tailback at New Kensington High in Pittsburgh (now called Valley High), he played QB at Michigan State and led the Spartans to the 1952 Big Ten and national titles.
Michigan State Univ.
- Dave Lewis started three years (1965-67) at quarterback for the Stanford Cardinals before being drafted to punt by the New York Giants. He also skipped to the CFL’s Alouettes for three years before Paul Brown picked him up for his expansion Bengals where he twice led the NFL in punting (1970-71) but only got in a few snaps at QB in 1971 when starter Virgil Carter and back-up Ken Anderson both were injured.
- Jimmy Raye was the quarterback on the national-power Michigan State teams (1965-67) that featured DE Bubba Smith, LB George Webster, RB Clinton Jones and WR Gene Washington. Raye was more a game manager on a physical team that majored in running and defense. He was drafted as a DB and played sparingly there with the Rams and Eagles but never took an NFL snap at QB. He later became a respected offensive assistant coach and coordinator for 10 different NFL teams over 36 seasons (1977-2013)
- Freddie Summers is considered the first black QB to start at a major university in the South. He played two sparkling seasons at Wake Forest (1967-68) where he was named first-team all-ACC his senior year. He was drafted by the Browns as a DB and played there three years and another with the New York Giants, but never took a snap at QB.
This was the almost blank white canvas onto which color was introduced at the quarterback position in major-college football.
“And to have three of them coming out of the same town to a USC, a Penn State and a Notre Dame at the same time speaks volumes,” said Jones. “It’s pretty remarkable that statistic would be even possible. I’m proud to be part of it.”
Jimmy Jones discusses his two QB contemporaries from the Harrisburg area, Mike Cooper and Cliff Brown.
PennLive/David Jones
From the looks of college football fields around the nation and the numbers of black quarterbacks who populate current rosters, it’s now hard to believe that such a time as 1968 ever existed, let alone just a couple of generations ago. It’s quite possible that four African-American QBs will start for Big Ten teams and at least three will start in each of the other Power Five conferences. Among the schools with black starting QBs are traditional national powers: Oklahoma, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Texas Christian, Virginia Tech, Miami and defending national champion Alabama.
USC and its coach John McKay were fortunate not only to sign Jones considering the task he would be handed – leading a Trojan team that had just lost the meat of its team including Heisman Trophy-winner O.J. Simpson to the AFL’s Buffalo Bills – but because of the young quarterback’s calm, even demeanor and his heritage. The son of John and Pauline Jones, second of four children, all brothers, was a leader first and a great quarterback second.
Taught by offensive mastermind George Chaump, he was a proven winner tempered by older brother John Jr., a prodigious multisport athlete himself. John Harris went 33-0 in Jim’s three varsity seasons including a 1967 in which he passed for a state-record 35 touchdowns.
John Harris quarterback Jimmy Jones (15) unleashes a pass in a game against William Penn.
Jimmy Jones file photo
Setting that record, with 8 TD passes in the final game against William Penn, Jones called “one of the least enjoyable events of my career.
“The game was completely out of hand and it just wasn’t something that was a part of my makeup. The coaches and players wanted me to get that record more than I wanted it. I didn’t want to go out there anymore.”
Jones did all this after fracturing the fifth and sixth vertebra in his neck while making a tackle at free safety his sophomore year.
Even better, Harris High was, by most accounts, something of a diverse racial utopia at a volatile time in US history, a school where people of different skin shades by and large got along and worked together well.
“There were good things we had going on at the time amongst the youngsters at John Harris. And you have to point to the adults, because the kids were a reflection of their parents in the community. It was a pretty remarkable period of time. We had a good opportunity to be diverse and work together to accomplish what we did as a community.”
Jimmy Jones recalls his culture shock upon moving to Los Angeles to begin school at USC exactly a half-century ago this month.
PennLive/David Jones
McKay wrapped up the signing by giving the keynote speech at Harris’ postseason banquet in front of a 4-figure gathering at the Zembo Mosque. Chaump was about to take the quarterback coach job under Woody Hayes at Ohio State. But the Buckeyes, Jones knew, already had a freshman there named Rex Kern who was ticketed for the quarterback position in 1968. He, in fact, would lead OSU to a 27-16 win over USC in the next Rose Bowl.
And then, there was his USC recruiting visit. Jones was greeted by O.J. Simpson himself, treated to front-row seats at a USC basketball game where the Trojans played UCLA and Lew Alcindor (later to be Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), taken to the USC hangout Julie’s restaurant for dinner and experienced the palm trees and sunshine that make LA what it is.
“My head wasn’t turned around,” said Jones. “But it did affect me. You’re like: Is this place for real?”
McKay would have a wide-open position at QB after starter Steve Sogge graduated following that ’68 season. And he promised Jones a fair shot at the starting job as a sophomore (freshmen were ineligible for varsity play at that time).
His main competition? A junior-college transfer named Jim Fassel and a senior coming off a series of injuries named Mike Holmgren. Jones beat out a pair of future Super Bowl head coaches for the 1969 starting USC quarterback job.
“McKay gave me that assurance and that was the best I could ask for – an open competition,” said Jones. “And I always felt in any open and fair competition I’d be a pretty hard person to beat out.”
He was. Jones started the 1969 opener at Nebraska, led the Trojans to a 31-21 win and found himself on the cover of Sports Illustrated in an iconic signal-calling photo the following Thursday.
After his first college game, a USC win at Nebraska, Jones graced the cover of Sports Illustrated. Click here to read the cover story and here to browse the entire issue.
Sports Illustrated
That group of Trojans became known as the Cardiac Kids for their penchant of turning even the ugliest performances into wins. They came from behind five times in the fourth quarter to snatch games. The most legendary was the Nov. 23 regular-season finale on ABC against UCLA. While Jones went an inexplicable 1-for-13 for 2 yards passing, the Bruins led late in the fourth quarter, 12-7. But an interference penalty on a fourth-and-10 gave USC new life. Then, after having nothing go right all day, Jones found his favorite target Sam Dickerson on a 32-yard post-corner into the darkest reaches of the end zone in the badly lit Los Angeles Coliseum for the winning touchdown. Forty-nine years later, it is still remembered as one of the great moments in USC football.
Before long, Jones got a job at Universal Studios as an assistant sound technician for movies and television series. His job was to make sure the proper microphones were set in the right positions. Among other shows, he staffed Get Smart, I Spy and The Lucy Show.
“You’re around all the people you’ve sat home and watched and here you’re bumping into them. Or going to their homes. Anything that could strike your imagination could happen. Like going to parties at Jim Brown’s house.”
Jimmy Jones describes the challenge of being a trail-blazing black quarterback as he began his college career in 1969.
PennLive/David Jones
Maybe Jones’ most seminal moment was the 1970 opener at Alabama. At the time, not only the Crimson Tide but none of the schools in the Southeastern Conference had suited a black player for a football game other than Kentucky and Tennessee. Only in 1967 had UK played Nate Northington against Mississippi and suited three other African-Americans.
Bear Bryant had just signed Wilbur Jackson at Bama but he was a freshman and ineligible to play at the time, per NCAA bylaws. Gov. George Wallace, whose regressive viewpoints on integration were well-known, had been a roadblock. This, even though Bama had not done well in prior years and fans were grumbling the game had passed Bryant by.
But the Bear might’ve had a plan. He flew to meet McKay at LAX in Los Angeles and arranged a home-and-home series for 1970-71.
The first game, in Birmingham, would have a lot to do with changing viewpoints on recruiting many more black players than Bryant might have been able to otherwise. Some in Alabama believe he scheduled the USC game purposely to expose his program’s need to integrate much more quickly.
The 1969-71 Trojans were not immune to racial tensions. Jones explains that, even under the largely progressive John McKay, black players sometimes believed they were inexplicably held back when their talent warranted playing time.
It was a night game on Sept. 12, 1970 at Legion Field in Birmingham, 40 miles from the Tuscaloosa campus, where the Tide sometimes held major showdowns. An almost palpable ominous air pervaded the team, Jones said, as the Trojans bused to the stadium:
“You saw everything you’d seen on TV, all that racial tension we’d seen and read about. And then you realized it was absolutely true.”
Jones said he heard the N-word used casually by locals in downtown Birmingham and around the team hotel. When the bus trip to Legion field embarked, it was a travelogue of squalor:
“We were literally looked at as saviors [by black residents]. You could see it in the people’s eyes as our bus rolled down the streets. It was like a little parade as we rolled through the African-American community. The streets were filled. People were waving and cheering us on.
“You realized that they can’t get into the game. They’re standing outside the stadium and listening to it on their radios. Sitting up on a hill outside the stadium to get a glimpse in.”
Emerging from the locker-room portal for warmups and then the game offered more foreboding as racial epithets flew. Then, they continued, even from Alabama players:
“A couple of our guys were called ‘******’ on the field when we were playing,” said Jones. “There’s no need to sugarcoat the reality of what that time was like. It was real. That kind of attitude wasn’t going to evaporate just because USC was coming to town to play a football game against Alabama.”
A different mindset began to seat in the Trojans:
“We’d been going in there pretty much under the guise that we were playing just another football game. But once we got there, we certainly understood why we were there and the importance of us coming out of there successful. And I think it turned the focus of a lot of us. It just turned everybody up another notch.”
That notch was evident. The Trojans applied what can only be called a beat-down to the tide. Running back Sam Cunningham rumbled for 135 yards on 12 carries. USC rolled up 559 total yards. After the 42-21 rout was over, Jones said the mood was buoyant:
“You felt great. You felt vindicated. Like you’d done something for yourself, but more importantly, you’d done something for the entire African-American race. One of the greatest feelings I’ve had in my lifetime was to be a part of that.”
Jimmy Jones describes what he saw and felt as his USC team bused to Legion Field in Birmingham for what would be a landmark moment in college football history -- the Trojans' 1970 game against Bear Bryant's all-white Alabama Crimson Tide.
PennLive/David Jones
Jones and the Trojans hit some rough times during the rest of 1970 and in 1971, at least by USC standards – a pair of 6-4-1 seasons. He endured thanks in part to the lessons of his parents John, a worker at auto dealerships, and Pauline, a cafeteria worker at state office buildings and hotels. Their mantra:
“Be God-centered, be a hard-worker, be neat, be clean, be respectful, be educated. And be resilient, because you’re going to get knocked down. All of those things were embedded in myself and my brothers.”
Once graduated, Jones wanted a shot to play quarterback in the NFL. He thought he’d get a chance from the Denver Broncos and new coach John Ralston who had coached the African-American Lewis as well as Mexican-American Heisman-winner Jim Plunkett at Stanford. But that opportunity fizzled as Jones was relegated to the secondary and eventually cut before the 1972 season began. No one else called to give him a chance. The only black quarterback in the NFL at the time was Joe Gilliam with the Steelers.
Instead, Jones found his opportunity with in the CFL with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. He ended up playing seven successful seasons in the league, including leading the Montreal Alouettes to two Grey Cups, winning it all in 1974.
After his retirement from football in 1980, he spent a career as a teacher, counselor, athletic coach, affirmative-action consultant and minister in Harrisburg until his recent retirement. Jones humbly asserts that his faith has guided not only his career but his humanity:
"Over the years, I've learned all of my work has been an extension of my ministry."
He is still married to his wife of 46 years, Amy Christine, with their two grown sons, Jamal (40) and Ahmad (34), making their ways in the world.
Though many believe he would have been a star in today’s more wide-open NFL offensive game in an age when racial makeup of quarterbacks finally seems not to be much of an issue, not a trace of bitterness is evident in Jones:
“I’m pretty comfortable with that fact that I’m someone who paved the way. There have always been those guys. I was born at a time when my success and my abilities were clearing the way for others who came behind me.
“And to see the success of African-Americans who play quarterback today does my heart good. If I could open the doors for them, that’s good enough for me.”
EMAIL/TWITTER DAVID JONES: djones@pennlive.com
Follow @djoneshoop
yes, that's correct; there was a John Harris lineman from those days who did go to Purdue, I believe, but the name escapes me
Wasn't Jan White also the state champion in the high hurdles? He was a three year starter at TE for OSU and then was a high second round draft choice of the Bills.
Very good high hurdler, but even better in the 180 low hurdles, where yes, I believe he did win states.
If I recall, Cooper was a young kid that took over for Burkhardt but team started off 1-2 getting beat up badly at Colorado and Wisconsin in 1970. Tough way to start and following up two unbeaten seasons. Joe had to pull the trigger. I believe he transferred out after that season. Not sure where he wound up.
I know in 1970 Bob Parsons did not do any better stat wise, he was then succeeded by Huffy , who had some record setting years. I do not recall any racial undertones as you quote, because we had Mitchell and Harris keeping the team above water that year.
you can hardly hold that "trouble outside a bar in NJ" against Rashard Casey
Totally agree but the press sure did hound him about it and i'm sure it added to the pressures of performing on the field.
David, great reference to Larry Conjar! I one had a conversation with the late Manny Weaver (father of PSU's Jim Weaver) and a legendary basketball and football coach in Harrisburg. He told me the best player he ever coached or saw come out of Harrisburg was a RB named Ross (last name). IIRC he said he attended a few very obscure colleges (maybe JUCO's) and came back to Harrisburg where he was a mechanic. Per Mr. Weaver this kid was as good as, or better than, the Jan White's and Jimmy Jones'. That's saying something.
