To football fans across the metro, the name Calvin Jones is a familiar one. The Central football player who played at the University of Nebraska made his mark on the state. He would eventually be drafted by the Los Angeles Raiders where he played for two years before going to Green Bay to play with the Packers, where he won a Super Bowl and finished out his career in 1996.
Jones passed away on Jan. 22, due to suspected carbon monoxide poisoning.
Jones attended Central from 1986 to 1989. This is when former coach William Reed would first see the sheer talent Jones possessed.
It was not on the football field that Reed first saw Jones, but on the track. Reed recalled how large of a person Jones was, but also how fast he was.
Fast forward to Jones’ sophomore year when he got his chance at varsity football, becoming the third string quarterback, not getting much playing time unless one of his fellow teammates went down.
It was not until his junior year that he went out and got his time to shine, putting up 250 yards in one of those games, 180 in another one. Jones played in three games and put up almost 1,000 yards. “At the end of one particular game Jones ran a touchdown and would not play another down for the rest of his season,” Reed said.
The standard at Central for the time was the mentality: “you could not lose your job through an injury. If you get hurt, when you get well again you got to go in the same position you came out of,” Reed said. Jones would have another two quarterbacks in front of him placing him back as the third string.
Jones knew how little time that he would get on the field as a third string quarterback, resulting in him going to coach Reed asking to play a little defense. Reed let him step into the position of linebacker despite the knowledge that his strength was actually running. “He did it all with a smile, didn’t fuss about it, and didn’t talk about quitting,” Reed said.
His senior season Jones would go out for his final season at Central and “was totally out of sight with nobody even close to him,” Reed said. His speed, mixed with his sheer athleticism, made him the “whole package starting with his attitude,” Reed said.
Reed, along with his coaching staff, were the first group of people that required lifting weights, for many of the faster football players there was a fear that “lifting weights would make them slower but I think that part really made his this greater than great person when he was able to really lift weights.” Jones proved that to be true as he was 5’11” and 210 pounds and was still one of the fastest on the team.
“He was the perfect person to coach and teach, you can’t miss how good he was, and his attitude was even better,” Reed said.
Football was not his only talent. Jones would take to the track in high school to win five gold medals at the state track meet in 1989, winning the 100-and 200-meter dashes as a senior and running on Central’s winning 400-meter relay.
Jones would make his way down to Lincoln, where he would red shirt. However, he later led the Big Eight conference in scoring, hit the fifth most yards for a freshman in the nation at 900, and earned Big Eight Offensive Newcomer of the Year, as well as second team all-conference from the Associated Press.
Jones’ sophomore year was no different, making history by being the only Nebraska rusher to gain 2,000 yards before the end of his sophomore season. Jones would never play more than two quarters but would rush for 1,210 yards on the season with 14 touchdowns to rank 14 in rushing and eighth in the nation in scoring. Jones was an all-Big Eight pick at running back and, second team All-America.
As a junior, Jones led the Big Eight in scoring for the third consecutive year with 8.67 points per game, which would also earn him the rank of ninth in the nation. Jones would also become a finalist for the Doak Walker Award, an award presented annually to the nation’s top running back. He was later inducted into the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame, honoring the impressive career he led.
Jones left Nebraska a year early to go professional, where he was a third-round pick to the Raiders, who were located in Los Angeles at the time. Jones went a total of 112 rushing yards, 15 total games played and 92 returning yards during his career in the NFL.
“This man seemed to take over and all of a sudden, he was a national local,” Reed said.
