Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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son of a single mother growing up in Flint, Mich., Jones was expected to be holding down a part-time job when he wasn't in school. His mother's one exemption was that Jones was allowed to spend time after school working in student government or service projects. So when he first tried out for the football team in high school, he told her he was attending student council meetings instead of practice. Jones made good on his white lie. He stayed involved at school, and by the liked the well-rounded approach. Their career paths have been woven tightly together since then. Jones split with Kelly when the latter first came to Notre Dame. Kelly's former offensive coordinator Jeff Quinn offered Jones an associate head coach's position at the University of Buffalo. Jones was also Quinn's recruiting coordinator, a defensive backs coach and ran the community outreach program in Buffalo. "When I got that job, E.J. was the "[He makes a] strong impact in our program, especially with the relationships with our players and our community service work." Head coach Brian Kelly on Jones time he was a senior he was voted the first African-American male student president at Flint Academy. Jones helped take care of his sister and brother, who are five and 10 years younger than him, respectively. He said having them around made him want to be a role model rather than being on the streets like a lot of his classmates and neighbors at the time. "There were a lot of guys that I grew up with that didn't do anything," he said. "I didn't want to do that. I wanted to be somebody." Jones carried that attitude to the Air Force after high school and then to Alcorn State where he played for four years in the early 1990s. Jones nervously pitched his interest in community service to Kelly when he first interviewed for an assistant job at Central Michigan in 2005. He was nervous that the head coach would want Jones to focus strictly on football, but Kelly first guy I hired," Quinn said. "He's a quality man. He's a family man, and he brings so much to the table." Jones said he left a good situation in Buffalo for a couple of reasons. The first: When Kelly calls, he listens — "I like to say he's the Don," Jones said. The second was that he felt pulled to focus on the player-building part of his job. He wouldn't rule out a return to actual on-the-field coaching, and some feel that he's something of a coach-inwaiting in South Bend. For now, he gets his fill watching drills from a distance and giving advice to players off the field. "We present it to these players as you have your own independent individual coach in me," Jones said. "You've got a guy that you can come in here and talk about football; talk about school; talk about life. That's a pretty big deal." ✦