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Mr. Jones can hoop a little bit too
6:39 PM Sat, Jun 21, 2008 | Permalink | Yahoo! Buzz
Albert Breer E-mail News tips
Adam Jones (we'll follow his request there) got a little prodding from the kids at Brandon Bass' camp out at the Boys and Girls Club in Worth.
Can't blame them, either, for pushing Mr. Jones to do something, anything. You got an elite athlete in your midst and it's understandable that you'd want to see him do something elite. And that just what Mr. Jones did.
He started his approach just outside the arc, took a couple steps in, threw the ball off the ground, then leaped, caught it in midair and threw it down. With both hands. A lot of people didn't notice, since there was a lot going on at once. But if you saw it, you had to take note. Mr. Jones, after all, is all of 5-foot-10.
He was asked if he'd been a basketball player in high school. He smiled and his swagger came out, "All-American, baby," he responded.
Jones was part of two state championship basketball teams at Westlake High in Atlanta and, in his words, a "highly recruited" prospect on the hardwood, with NC State, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame and a slew of smaller D-I's in pursuit. He went so far as to say, as a high schooler, he was better in basketball than football.
But ... "I decided to go with football, because I was only 5-8 at the time."
Coach Gale Catlett had recruited Jones to WVU as a basketball player, but by the time he arrived on campus, John Beilein -- now at Michigan -- had taken over.
Mr. Jones considered playing both football and basketball. He said Beilein liked the idea. But the coach had one request.
"He wanted me to cut my hair, and I wouldn't cut my hair in college," said the Cornerback Formerly Known as Pacman, who still had his trademark dreadlocks at that point. "That was it. That was the reason I didn't play."
The locks, by the way, are now gone.
Earlier this week, Mr. Jones turned down interview requests because his cornrows were a little messy. He said he was going to get them cleaned up, and would be willing to go on camera once they were done.
As promised, he showed up in Fort Worth with those cornrows tightly wound. So clearly, as much as Mr. Jones is trying to change in other ways, one thing remains the same -- The guy's hair is pretty important to him.
6:39 PM Sat, Jun 21, 2008 | Permalink | Yahoo! Buzz
Albert Breer E-mail News tips
Adam Jones (we'll follow his request there) got a little prodding from the kids at Brandon Bass' camp out at the Boys and Girls Club in Worth.
Can't blame them, either, for pushing Mr. Jones to do something, anything. You got an elite athlete in your midst and it's understandable that you'd want to see him do something elite. And that just what Mr. Jones did.
He started his approach just outside the arc, took a couple steps in, threw the ball off the ground, then leaped, caught it in midair and threw it down. With both hands. A lot of people didn't notice, since there was a lot going on at once. But if you saw it, you had to take note. Mr. Jones, after all, is all of 5-foot-10.
He was asked if he'd been a basketball player in high school. He smiled and his swagger came out, "All-American, baby," he responded.
Jones was part of two state championship basketball teams at Westlake High in Atlanta and, in his words, a "highly recruited" prospect on the hardwood, with NC State, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame and a slew of smaller D-I's in pursuit. He went so far as to say, as a high schooler, he was better in basketball than football.
But ... "I decided to go with football, because I was only 5-8 at the time."
Coach Gale Catlett had recruited Jones to WVU as a basketball player, but by the time he arrived on campus, John Beilein -- now at Michigan -- had taken over.
Mr. Jones considered playing both football and basketball. He said Beilein liked the idea. But the coach had one request.
"He wanted me to cut my hair, and I wouldn't cut my hair in college," said the Cornerback Formerly Known as Pacman, who still had his trademark dreadlocks at that point. "That was it. That was the reason I didn't play."
The locks, by the way, are now gone.
Earlier this week, Mr. Jones turned down interview requests because his cornrows were a little messy. He said he was going to get them cleaned up, and would be willing to go on camera once they were done.
As promised, he showed up in Fort Worth with those cornrows tightly wound. So clearly, as much as Mr. Jones is trying to change in other ways, one thing remains the same -- The guy's hair is pretty important to him.
