BALTIMORE, Md. - Ben Blacknall's first impression of future Alabama A&M football coach Anthony Jones wasn't a very good one.
Blacknall was an assistant coach at Wichita State almost 30 years ago and recruited the Baltimore area for the Shockers. He had gotten wind of Jones, an undersized tight end at Patterson High School, and decided to check him out.
Blacknall laughs at the memory.
"When I first saw him, I didn't think he was a college prospect," said Blacknall, who serves as Jones' defensive line coach at A&M. "I didn't think, at the time, he was what we were looking for."
That was during the summer of 1979.
Shunned by Blacknall and the Shockers, Jones signed a scholarship to play at Maryland-Eastern Shore.
But Jones, who was 6-foot and 180 pounds coming out of high school, changed almost overnight. By the end of his freshman year, he was 6-2 and 210 pounds.
"The kid could catch the ball and he had some escapability," said Andrew Lee, the MES offensive coordinator at the time and now a strength coach at A&M. "He had great hands. He could catch any kind of pass."
MES dropped football after that season and Jones was left looking for a place to play.
Re-enter Blacknall, who had gone back to MES to see if there were any players the Shockers could use. Jones turned out to be one of them.
"He looked like a totally different player," Blacknall remembered. "I told (Wichita State) Coach (Willie) Jeffries we needed to sign him. We redshirted him and his last two years he was a beast."
Jones developed that mentality playing on the mean streets in his hometown.
He grew up in Flaghouse Projects, one of the roughest housing projects in east Baltimore, an area that has since been revitalized. As a youngster, Jones and his friends would play football and other sports against kids from other projects and would often have to fight their way home.
"He was a warrior," said Keith Puryear, one of Jones' good friends. "He had no fear. He was relentless. He never sold himself short.
"His motivation was he wanted to get out (of the projects). He saw that there were other things out there and he was willing to make sacrifices."
It was Puryear's father - Raymond - who showed Jones the way.
Jones' father, Anthony Jones II, died of a heart attack in 1970. The younger Jones was only 10.
"We were having a family reunion on the Fourth of July," Jones recalled. "My father told me and my brother Wade he was going home and he told us how much he loved us. I felt funny having that conversation. He called me Anthony and he told me to promise that I would take care of Mom and the family.
"I looked at him and he looked tired. I thought he just needed to go home and go to sleep. The next morning we got a call that he had died."
A way out
His father's death forced Jones to grow up faster than he wanted.
"I made a promise to myself that I was going to get my mother out of the projects," Jones said. "I didn't know how I was going to do it. Athletics was a saving grace for me. Education was not a big thing to me at that time, but I knew I had to do it through education. So I kept working and working, and the good Lord kept blessing me with opportunities."
Jones played just two years at Patterson High, but he had played a lifetime in the projects before he even got to school ball.
Growing up, Jones and Puryear would play for hours on a daily basis.
"We were big NFL fans and we would find plays that teams actually used and make up some of our own," said Puryear, the tennis coach at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. "Then, we would go out and practice the routes. It didn't matter how cold it was ɠif it was raining or snowing. Sometimes, it would be just him and me.
"We had our NFL jerseys and we'd go out and just throw and catch. We were obsessed. We always talked about becoming pro athletes."
After his time at Wichita State, Jones became a pro athlete, spending five seasons with the Washington Redskins. He was a part of the Redskins' 1987 Super Bowl team. Even so, that probably wouldn't have happened had he not gone to MES.
During one practice, former MES coach Tyrone Caldwell, clearly frustrated with his team, told them to get on the goal line.
"He told us he was going to find out who wanted to play," Jones said. "We started running 110s and he said if anybody stopped running they were off the team. He didn't care who you were or what position you played. I ran and ran and ran until he stopped the drill.
"There were several times I wanted to stop, but I couldn't take a chance because I didn't know if he was going to let me back on the team. I didn't have anywhere to go. If I went back home, there was no guarantee I would get out again. When I left there, I made a promise to myself and everybody who believed in me that I was going to come back successful."
Jones' role model
While Jones credits many of his coaches with helping him to be successful, Raymond Puryear was his first role model.
Even before Jones' father died, Puryear was like a father to him. Jones' father and Puryear made a pact that whoever lived the longest would help raise the other man's children.
As a result, every weekend, Jones and his brother would stay with Puryear and his family.
"That was my introduction to life outside the projects," Jones said. "He practically adopted us. He taught me the importance of educating myself. I got a chance to see a mom and a dad in the house with a family. I got a chance to see people working. I got a chance to go on an actual vacation.
"If he struggled, he never showed it. Every weekend that we were there, we always had something to eat. The house was always heated and air-conditioned. We had a car. We had proper furniture. It wasn't just his two kids, but he invited me and my brother.
"I really admired the way he made sure his family was taken care of. He taught me the meaning of responsibility. I don't know if he did that subconsciously or purposely, but I wanted to emulate him as a guy who created responsibility for himself and accepted responsibility for himself."
Blacknall recognized those qualities in Jones early on.
"People liked him because he was a hard worker and he paid attention to details ɠjust like he coaches," he said. "He's a good, dependable guy. His greatest asset his whole life has been his work ethic."
That work ethic began when he was a youngster in the projects, and Jones continues to work like that to this day.
"All I knew was my project life ... what was up in those four walls," Jones said. "It was kind of a concrete jungle. The life I grew up with made me appreciate everything that I would work to get and I thank God for those times."
While people in the projects were considered poor, Jones and his friends didn't know it. He never went without food, clothing or shelter. His mother, Shirley, saw to that.
"Everybody in my neighborhood wasn't rich," he said. "We lived in the projects. But I could be over at my best friend Paul's house and when it was time for him to eat, his mother would offer me something. He could be at our house and when it was time for us to eat my mother would offer him something ... even if it was part of my sandwich.
"We shared like that. That allowed us to be closer and created a family atmosphere."
Making dough
Sunday dinners were among the highlights of Jones' time with Raymond Puryear and his family.
Jones, who didn't get three meals a day until he went to Puryear's house or off to college, could eat as much as he wanted. The menu included two meats, three, sometimes four vegetables, one starch, bread, Kool-Aid and dessert.
While Jones liked a little bit of everything, he particularly liked biscuits.
"I'd eat three biscuits before I'd eat anything else," he said, laughing.
Jones enjoyed biscuits so much that while he was at Wichita State, Puryear's wife, Delores, sent him a canister full of ingredients.
"She told me how much milk I had to add," he said. "I made those biscuits and that's all I had. I must have eaten a half a dozen of them. I didn't call my friends. I didn't tell anybody about them. I ate all those biscuits by myself. That was a special time."
Despite his tough upbringing, Jones' life has been filled with special times. Perhaps none was more fulfilling than when he was able to move his mother out of the projects.
Jones, who sent money home while he was in college, was able to move his mother after his first year with the Redskins.
"I moved her to Virginia with me," said Jones, whose mother died in 1994. "I also bought a house for my sisters and brothers. I had moved my family out of the projects."
Keith Puryear never doubted Jones would do great things.
"I always knew he would," he said. "We were both very driven. I watched him every step of the way. A.J. is a very thoughtful person. He's always thinking. He doesn't do anything in haste. He doesn't do anything rash. He always thinks things through very carefully and once he develops his plan of action, he goes after it."
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