Ramone Jones is an option quarterback, so he is used to making tough choices. But deciding whether to hand the ball off, keep it or throw it is nothing compared with the dilemma he faced three years ago.
The decision then was football or basketball, an agonizing call for a freshman who desperately wanted to play both. That was one option he didn`t have.
Jones` mother, Angele Bates, wasn`t about to budge from her position that grades came ahead of games. Ramone, she insisted, wouldn`t compete in two sports at Oak Park-River Forest High School until he earned that privilege in the classroom, and she wanted to see two years of work before giving her OK.
Bates had practiced what she preached in her own youth. She gave birth to Ramone at age 17 and raised him as a single mother, but she refused to let that stop her from getting an education. She graduated from De Paul, built a career as an accountant then got herself and her son out of Chicago`s South Side and into Oak Park by the time he was 10.
Jones became an age-group football star but played basketball as a freshman and sophomore at Oak Park. He believed he had more potential in the latter while at the same time having a better chance of bouncing back from a two-year layoff in the former.
And make no mistake about it: Jones never doubted he would play high school football. During his ”exile,” he would sit in his room running and rerunning tapes of his 8th-grade games to evaluate his weaknesses. He played sandlot ball when he could, and as his junior year approached a year ago, he worked hard on his conditioning.
There was, of course, the matter of beating his mother`s prevent defense. But since struggling somewhat as a freshman, Jones had performed well enough in the classroom not only to satisfy Bates but also lay a foundation that helped him meet NCAA eligibility standards for college freshmen by last spring.
After two seasons off, his football foundation was lacking, but to say he made good progress last fall would be like saying Woody Allen has a slightly offbeat love life. By the second game of the season, just four weeks after the first high school football practice of his life, Jones was Oak Park`s starting quarterback.
He completed 87 of 164 passes as the Huskies struggled to a 3-6 record, but Oak Park returns 15 starters this year and has a shot at a playoff berth. Jones first viewed his mother`s one-sport policy as punishment but gradually changed his attitude.
”It did hurt,” he acknowledged. ”Some things your parents tell you, you don`t understand at first. As you get older, you start to.
”I started to buckle down my sophomore year after Christmas. I knew I wouldn`t be able to play any sports if my grades were bad. And what if I didn`t do well (in sports)? Then I would have to be ready with my mind to go to college anyway.”
Now, just a year after he was finally able to play two sports, he has to pick one for college. Mom isn`t forcing this choice. The culprit now is the time demands of big-time collegiate athletics.
Basketball apparently will win again. Jones was the top substitute last season on an Oak Park team that finished 25-4 and reached the sectional finals before losing to state champion Proviso East. He performed well enough on the summer circuit to solidify his status as a Division I recruit.
The likes of Bradley, Creighton, Eastern Illinois, Fordham, Maine, Northern Illinois, Pacific and St. Louis have kept the phone ringing. The 6-foot-5-inch guard and future architect plans to answer the call and sign a basketball letter of intent in November.
Oak Park football coach Jack McInerney has no problem with that, but he believes Jones also could be a major-college football prospect. He is a good enough athlete that he will play free safety on defense at times this fall.
”The key word is potential,” McInerney said. ”He has a very strong arm and he`s tall yet has mobility. He`s improved 100 percent since last year, and the reason is he`s very coachable.
”His improvement is amazing from not playing. If he had played football four years, he could name a school.”
Both McInerney and Oak Park basketball coach Al Allen rave about Jones`
work ethic, competitiveness, leadership and toughness. Allen cringed every time his star backcourt prospect got leveled last fall, but he supported Jones` decision to play football.
”It looks like one of those situations where you have the true love of the game,” said Allen, who`s also a freshman football coach. ”Ramone isn`t going to get anything out of it except a chance to play football.”
That love of the game comes from his mother, who used to wear Ramone`s spare jersey to his age-group games and sprint down the sidelines parallel to him when he broke free on TD runs.
The two are close-really close. Relationships get that way when it`s you and me against the world. Bates remembers when Ramone was 7 years old and going one-on-one with the CTA because she wanted him to attend Catholic grade school. She remembers nervously calling a drugstore next to his bus stop a couple times to make sure he had the right fare.
Her pride in her son is matched only by her determination that college sports will be of use, not abuse, to him educationally. Recruiters take note: She is an ornery shopper.
”I`m very proud of Ramone,” she said. ”There are a lot of directions he could have gone in. He could have been rebellious, could have been difficult to control.
”One of my goals has been to communicate with him. We`ve been like friends. We can talk and talk it out. He can come to me with anything.”
