Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 29, 1995 TAG: 9509290016
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BIG STONE GAP LENGTH: Long
There's no sense in being anything other than blunt about this:
On those occasions that Thomas Jones does not carry the football for Powell Valley High School, a favor is being done for the Vikings' opponent.
The notion is not original. In fact, pretty much the same observation was offered by a long-time observer of high school football who strode the Radford High sidelines several weeks back.
The speaker wasn't one of the coaches. Coaches don't say things like that, at least not publicly.
Coaches say stuff like this from Radford's Norman Lineburg after the Vikings tailback scorched his team for 240 yards rushing and three touchdowns in a 28-7 victory: ``Thomas Jones is big time.''
Yes Jones is.
Forty-three hundred yards and 60 touchdowns in his past 18 games worth of big time. The totals for this season are 86 carries for 986 yards rushing (1,062 all-purpose) and 16 touchdowns.
Coaches from Florida State's Bobby Bowden to Tennessee's Phillip Fulmer to Pittsburgh's Johnny Majors calling night after night worth of big time.
A grade-point average of 3.1 on a 4.0 scale in a college prep curriculum and attaining a freshman eligibility-qualifying 850 on the SAT test on the first try worth of big time.
``I'm taking the SAT again,'' said Thomas Quinn Jones, a 6-foot, 188-pound football sensation the likes of which have not been seen in these mountains since his uncle Edd Clark was being glorified as the ``Stonega Stallion'' almost 30 years ago. ``I'm disappointed in that score. I want to have at least a 1,000. I'll get it, too.''
A competitor, you say?
And a gentleman as well as a scholar.
``Hey, can somebody help us carry some boxes of food in here?'' a woman asked of some Powell Valley players as she began delivery of pregame meals to the Vikings spacious field house before the Radford game.
Jones was the first player on his feet and out the door to find a box to tote.
``Raised right, educated right, does the right thing,'' Powell Valley coach Phil Robbins said of Jones.
The raising came from father Thomas Avery Jones and mother Betty Clark Jones. The elder Jones toiled in the same Appalachia High backfield from which Edd Clark launched himself into history for 5,908 yards and 86 touchdowns back in the 1960s. Jones went on to careers in radio, mining, and college admissions at Tennessee and East Tennessee State. Betty Jones, Edd's sister, was the first black cheerleader at Appalachia and a miner for 17 years. Although she's been laid off by Westmoreland Coal Company and officially retired since summer, she's still being approached in the Hardee's here with questions about the local United Mine Workers chapter.
The Jones parents are caught up in the hurricane of interest in their eldest son just as it seems everybody is in this pleasant, tree-shaded town on the banks of the Powell River. The Joneses are quite clearly as tickled as they can be.
``All this is happening because Thomas has a God-given ability,'' Betty Jones said. ``He has been very level-headed about it.''
It must be hard. Teen-agers who rush for 3,314 yards and 44 touchdowns - single-season state records both - while helping a team to the Group A Division 2 state championship, as Jones did last year; kids who carry for 462 yards in one game, as Jones did breaking by 13 yards a state record set by one Edd Clark, against the same school, J.I. Burton, 27 years previous, are usually deprived of the privilege of leading a normal life.
Jones, who just-turned 17, is trying, though. Nobody attempts to insulate him from anything, either. Robbins regales reporters with Jones stories, refers all recruiting calls to the parents (Betty has lots of time to work the phones now that she's a full-time mom again), then hands the kid the ball on Friday night.
It's a popular play-calling choice in these parts.
``You've never met Thomas before?'' asked Jane Crank from behind the front desk at the high school. ``You are really in for a treat. He's a fine young man.''
Jones came by his athletic prowess honestly. At age 5, he wanted a set of weights. After his father managed to maintain a straight face, he counseled that perhaps young Thomas might be better off with some pushups and situps to start.
Young Thomas since has done 100 of each every night before bed to this day.
The football talent was apparent from the start. Jones was the star of the Chargers in the town sandlots and the big rivalry was with the Packers, whose star was named Todd Zirkle. The teams were about even in championships won and Jones and Zirkle staged some epic multi-touchdown extravaganzas.
``The same skills, a different age,'' Zirkle says of Jones.
Now they've united on a Powell Valley team that includes them among a veteran core of players expected to lead the Vikings to a second consecutive state championship and the fifth since Robbins moved there from Christiansburg in the early 1980s.
This small high school knows its sports. State championships have been won in boys' basketball, golf, baseball, and track and field.
The Jones family - five girls and two boys - has been in the thick of it, too. Gwen, the oldest child at age 25, was a state champion in the 400 meters. Thomas Jones is within about 200 or so points of 1,000 for his basketball career. More Joneses are on the way after Thomas, too. Julius, 14, is part of what has been described as the best group of freshman football players ever at Powell Valley. Julius may be the pick of that distinguished bunch, too.
``He'll be a dandy,'' Robbins said.
Thomas Jones, meanwhile, is contributing to the cause while playing both ways at tailback and linebacker. Robbins has been questioned about taking a chance on getting Jones hurt by playing him on defense, but the coach just shrugs and says the kid would have a fit if he didn't play defense.
Those who are having the fits now (aside from those opponents who are charged with stopping him) are those trying to figure out where Jones is going to college.
Jones gives no clues, although he appears to be leaning ever so slightly to Tennessee, 21/2 hours from here, the local rooting favorite, and his father's former employer. Syracuse was the first of many schools to have made the younger Jones a scholarship offer. Florida State is involved. Virginia and Virginia Tech are eager to sign him. Duke, South Carolina, and West Virginia are in the sweepstakes. Likewise North Carolina and Clemson. Visits are likely to Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina.
``I don't think he'll sign early,'' said his father, adding that Thomas is being left alone to make the decision.
There's plenty of high school football to be played before that.
``I like to get into that frame of mind when I think nobody can stop me,'' he said. ``It's weird when guys who are twice as big as you are coming in and trying to kill you, yet you aren't afraid.
``You just run.''
by CNB