HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL

Bulldogs are built on respect

NWA Media/JASON IVESTER
Greenwood High School -- head coach Rick Jones; photographed on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2013, during practice for football tab
NWA Media/JASON IVESTER Greenwood High School -- head coach Rick Jones; photographed on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2013, during practice for football tab

GREENWOOD - Picture this.

Lining the walls of Greenwood’s massive indoor football facility are pictures. Lots of pictures.

There are state championship pictures, pictures of former players, motivational pictures and, in the office of one of the most successful coaches in Arkansas high school history, two slightly puzzling pictures.

Rick Jones proudly displays an autographed picture of his childhood hero, wrestling legend Danny Hodge, and, thanks to his days working security in the early 1980s at The Zoo Amphitheatre in Oklahoma City, a picture of funk music icon George Clinton.

“Rick is an interesting person,” said Little Rock Christian Coach Jeff Weaver, a former Greenwood player and offensive coordinator under Jones at the school.

Jones would rather talk about a picture just outside his office, a seemingly innocuous shot of players preparing to run one of 56 sprints (5 to 50 yards) on the final day of FASDOGS, Greenwood’s demanding four-week speed, strength and conditioning program held each July on the eve of fall practice.

“I put that picture out there for me,” Jones said late last month. “As stupid as it sounds, we as human beings have to be reminded constantly to do what’s right, and it’s our job as coaches to make sure they do it right.”

Rick Jones, By the Numbers

240-64 Overall high school coaching record; 108-16 Record at Greenwood, 73-32 Record at Broken Arrow, Okla., 18-6 Record at Tulsa Union, 41-10 Record at Edmond, Okla.

7 High school state championships; 1 High school state championships won at Edmond (Class 5A, 1989), 6 High school state championships won at Greenwood (Class 6A in 2012; Class 5A in 2006, 2007, 2010 and 2011; Class AAAA in 2005)

7 Conference titles won at Greenwood

58-5 Conference record at Greenwood

30-3 Playoff record at Greenwood

39 Current winning streak at Greenwood, which is the third-longest in Arkansas high school history

In this instance, Jones pointed to one player whose hand was maybe 3 inches in front of the white yard line, or starting point, on the artificial playing surface at Smith Robinson Stadium, Greenwood’s football home.

“It was my fault that he got away with it,” Jones said, adding the player was new to the program. “When I walk out the door and see that picture, it reminds me as coaches that we have to make sure we do it right. We have to make sure that the kids do everything exactly right.”

They are, based on results, because Jones is the unquestioned architect of one of the greatest programs in Arkansas high school football history.

IN GOOD COMPANY

Entering his 10th season at the Class 6A school, 14 miles southeast of Fort Smith, Jones has won 87.1 percent of his games (108-16), 7 conference championships, 6 state championships and finished state runner-up once.

No school has sustained success at a higher level since small-school terror Barton won seven state championships between 1986 and 1997, a stretch punctuated by a state-record 63-game winning streak (1986-1990).

Jones’ towering accomplishments mirror the legendary Wilson Matthews, who in 11 seasons at Little Rock Central was 109-17-3 and won 10 state championships before joining Frank Broyles’ staff at Arkansas following the 1957 season.

Matthews left Central with a 33-game winning streak. Greenwood’s winning streak reached 39 - third-longest in Arkansas history - with last Friday’s 49-3 victory over Sallisaw, Okla. Dollarway has the second longest streak at 51 (1988-1991). Greenwood is trying to become the first school since Barton (1986-1989) to win four consecutive state championships.

“It’s the best overall program in the state,” Weaver said. “I don’t mean any disrespect to anybody else. He’s the best.”

The best on the field, and maybe more important, off it, according to those who have been connected to Greenwood’s football inner circle.

Jones, 58, idolizes Vince Lombardi, who coached the Green Bay Packers to Super Bowl titles following the 1966 and 1967 seasons, but doesn’t use four-letter words to motivate or intimidate. He demands accountability from his players, is driven to improve a seemingly perfect product, stresses team over individual achievement and, as that FASDOGS picture illustrates, is almost obsessed with the smallest details.

“We went to the finals in 2004 and won it in 2005, 2006 and 2007, and every offseason he’s trying to find a better way of doing it,” Weaver said. “Sometimes as an assistant we would say, ‘Coach, this is working.’ He would say, ‘Yeah, but I want to do it better.’ He’s never satisfied. He’s always working to get better, and I think that’s why he’s been able to succeed.”

EARLY EDUCATION

Jones said those traits were forged growing up in southern Oklahoma, where he attended seven schools in 12 years, and playing football for the late John Prock at Harding University.

Jones’ tight-knit Church of Christ family was led by his late father J.D., a self-employed entrepreneur who sold cars for more than 30 years.

“He worked like a dog,” Jones said. “He wore a suit and tie seven days a week and twice on Sunday.”

But coaching, not cars, became Jones’ career passion after reading Instant Replay, Jerry Kramer’s diary of Green Bay’s 1967 season, in the fifth or sixth grade. Kramer was a five-time NFL All-Pro offensive guard and a vital cog in Lombardi’s famed Packer sweep.

Jones said he was fascinated by Instant Replay, particularly struck by “how these grown men were so respectful and fearful” of Lombardi, who was only 5-foot-8.

“I just thought it was a really cool story,” Jones said. “It sort of sparked an interestin coaching, and I’ve always loved football.”

Jones said he thought that path would begin by signing with Oklahoma, playing for Barry Switzer, becoming an All-American and spending 10 or 12 years with the Dallas Cowboys.

Instead, there was a dramatic detour.

After graduating from Ardmore High School in 1973, Jones walked on at Harding, the cozy Church of Christ-affiliated university in Searcy, and played for Prock, an Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame member who would groom some of the most successful coaches in state high school history.

Jones burst out in laughter when recalling his “verbal commitment” during a phone conversation with Prock as a high school senior.

Jones said Prock initially couldn’t contain his enthusiasm over landing a 5-foot-11, 181-pound defensive end/linebacker prospect, then asked, ‘Who did you say this was?’ ”

Jones eventually earned a scholarship, working his way into Harding’s defensive rotation as a sophomore and starting as a junior before injuries to both shoulders ended his playing career.

Jones said one of the most pivotal moments of his life occurred when Prock asked him to help coach the offensive line.

“He was one of the great mentors,” Jones said. “He gave me a lot of time. I sat in his office a lot. I was taking graduate courses, and they don’t meet all that often. When I wasn’t there, I was in his office just watching film and listening to him do his job.”

There was nothing glamorous about being a Bison in the mid-1970s.

Jones said Harding’s facilities were so poor that players used skin-shredding steel rods, instead of barbells, to lift weights, and the locker room flooded whenever it rained. But each time water covered the floor, Jones said Prock was there to “squeegeeit up.”

“The so-called college head coach is out there mopping the floor,” said Jones, who graduated from Harding in 1977 with a physical education degree. “I’ve always remembered that. I’ve tried to be the same type guy.”

ALWAYS PREPARED

A reporter several years ago once contacted Jones in his office at 10 p.m. - in January. Greenwood’s coaches work seven days a week during the season.

“I promise you, there’s probably not a staff in the state that has put in more hours on the weekend than them,” said Searcy Coach Jeromy Poole, a former co-defensive coordinator for Jones at Greenwood.

Jones was coaching Broken Arrow, Okla., in 2002 when he believed the suburban Tulsa school needed to boost a slumping kicking game, so he flew to Houston to spend an evening with special teams guru Joe Robinson, then coaching at the University of Houston.

“I think it sort of goes back to any little edge you can get, you better take advantage of,” Jones said.

Greenwood used some of Robinson’s concepts, Jones said, in last year’s Class 6A state championship game against Pine Bluff, blocking a punt in a 51-44 victory to complete a second consecutive 14-0 season.

“The system he’s got, however you answer him, he has an answer to come back with built into the system,” Pine Bluff Coach Bobby Bolding said. “If you do this, well, I’m going to do this.”

But Wittney Jones, an adjunct faculty member at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith and a doctoral student at Walden University in Minneapolis, said she is equally impressed with what happens at Greenwood off the playing field, noting the football program has a life coach, Stan Escalante, to counsel players.

Wittney Jones has had three sons play for Rick Jones, including senior wide receiver/safety Taylor Hasley, a three-year starter. She calls Jones humble, a man of integrity, consistent in holding true to his values and possessing a strong moral compass.

“He genuinely wants to create leaders in life out of the boys he coaches,” said Jones, who is not related to the coach. “He is always teaching the boys on the team life lessons and qualities that men of character possess: Honesty, integrity, being on time - if not early - discipline, respect, teamwork, hard work, leadership.

“Everything he teaches on that field and in the locker room serves a purpose beyond football. He not only teaches it, but he expects it out of his players.”

As an example, Rick Jones, the son of a Church of Christ elder, doesn’t tolerate profanity from his coaches or players.

“I’ve been cussed, hit, grabbed, slapped, kicked and punched,” Jones said. “As a player, I went through it all. I played in a different era, and I know how I felt when that happened. I don’t want kids feeling that way about me. That’s not part of our everyday language around here.”

Tapping a closed fist twice on his office desk, Jones said he’s never used profanity on the sideline, adding that he would dive off a cliff if he did.

“I’m not going to ever slip, because I don’t say it in normal life,” Jones said.

Jones’ code words for anger include much tamer phrases such as “gosh, darn” or “gosh darn a Friday.” Jones will throw his hat or call sheet down when he’s upset, Poole said, but that is where Greenwood’s mega-successful coach draws the line.

“He just doesn’t believe in belittling the kids in any form or fashion,” Poole said. “He talks to the coaching staff all the time about positivity. It’s got to be positive. If you’re not positive, the kids aren’t going to be positive.”

Avoiding profanity is an unwritten rule at Greenwood.But each player does receive a Winner’s Manual that, among other things, outlines the team’s daily schedule from January until December and strict criteria for participation in the program, including medical clearance, maintaining at least a 2.0 grade-point average in the offseason semester and attending at least 70 percent of the FAS (Fundamentals, Agility and Speed) DOGS program.

The last of eight requirements is clearly the most compelling. Jones doesn’t give second chances.

Players who quit are not allowed to return for the remainder of their football careers at Greenwood. Any athlete who doesn’t play football following his freshman season also isn’t allowed to ever play again at Greenwood.

That clock starts in January, when offseason workouts begin.

“If they quit, they know they don’t come back,” Jones said. “It’s the rule that I have the most problem with, frankly, because I think sometimes kids are young, they’re 15 years old, they don’t know what they really want to do and then they realize they make a huge mistake.”

Senior quarterback Jabe Burgess said some of his friends who quit the program, good players, moved to other schools after not being allowed to return.

“I mean, it happens, but that’s just kind of Coach Jones’ rule,” Burgess said. “We all respect that.”

IN IT TOGETHER

On this steamy August afternoon, Burgess is moving slowly because of a walking boot that is protecting a broken bone on the outside of his left foot. But Burgess, who has orally committed to Tulsa after throwing for 3,104 yards and 36 touchdowns last fall, is clearly still part of the team.

Burgess and three other quarterbacks spend about 30 minutes with Jones in his office before practice, being quizzed about coverages and reads and reinforcing proper footwork while watching video of a recent intrasquad scrimmage.

Burgess throws lightly in practice to maintain arm strength, but he spends much of the 2½ hours encouraging teammates. The intense, highly structured practice is broken down into five-minute work periods and conducted at a frenetic pace. Jones screams at players walking.

Because Greenwood’s practices are so up-tempo, players normally don’t run after practice during the season for conditioning. After this practice ends, Jones summons Burgess and a younger player before the team as part of the coach’s mentoring program.

He then asks Burgess to name the younger player’s father, mother, brother, sister, favorite food, favorite professional team and favorite college team. Any wrong answer requires the entire team to run. Burgess records a perfect score.

Get the picture?

“We’re all in this together,” Burgess said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re hurt or if you’re on the practice squad or a starter. Whoever you are, you’re contributing to the team, no matter what.”

Sports, Pages 17 on 09/13/2013

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