Old School

I attended the funeral of coach Paul Jones the other week and it reminded me of a funny story that I am sure a lot of us have about him or growing up in Kinston. After an on-line chat last night with Kevin King he suggested that I share a story from back in the day. So I guess I take requests, keep in mind that this happened over 20 years ago but I think I have the key players in this story correct.

I played JV basketball my tenth grade year as well as baseball. I was in Coach Jones's 7th period PE class, along with all the current varsity and other potential basketball players. After basketball season I would sneak out with the baseball players and get in some extra cuts in the batting cage during tryouts. Coach Jones saw me walking out of the gym one day wearing my cleats and carrying my Easton green label bat. He stopped me and said, "I guess you have played your last basketball game at this school." I just nodded, I had no illusions that my mediocre basketball career was over, besides all I wanted to do was play baseball.

This did not discourage me from supporting my friends that played varsity basketball, in fact, myself and some of my friends started a dubious tradition that may or may not still exist today. We were some of the most obnoxious fans in the conference, I mean down right nasty. And it was not just in Kinston either, we were chased all the way to Dover one night after a game in New Bern. Southern Wayne fans chased us all the way to LaGrange on an empty tank of gas.

Visiting cheerleaders were treated to a very loud version of "Old McDonald had a Farm" at every home game, for that I am really ashamed. What an a hole!

Okay the story; we were playing a conference school who had a player that was being recruited by UNC and other schools. However it was made public that this young man was having trouble with his SAT scores. We reminded him of this every time he went to the free throw line. Well needless to say this did not make the AD at this school very happy, the next day he Fed Exed a letter stating his displeasure.

I found myself standing in our AD's office along with my friends Mitchel Howard and John Harvey, not the dozens and dozens of people saying a lot worse stuff than we were. He read the letter and then singled us out as the "ringleaders" and after a few minutes of heated and uncomfortable conversation he informed us that we were banned from any more home games. Now if memory serves me correct, the conference tournament was starting the next week.

As we were leaving we walked by Coach Jones's office, "How did it go Rick Dean?" he asked.

After explaining the situation and a few jokes from Mitchel, Coach told us to be at the next game, "I'll take care of him." Was all he said.

Now I don't remember the outcome of that game or that season, I do remember maintaining a relationship with the Coach after he caught me ducking his class to go to the batting cage. I sprained my ankle pretty bad one year and coach Jones taped my ankle nearly every afternoon before baseball practice, he was a nice guy.

He always supported his players and I guess he supported those who supported them.



And for those of you who do not believe in karma, I ran into one of those cheerleaders at a party in college, she found out I went to Kinston High School and properly deposited her drink on my head, I deserved that.