Blue White Illustrated

SPRING FOOTBALL WRAP | PENN STATE VS. HOUSTON not go unnoticed by frustrated fans posting on message boards or even in- teracting with him on Twitter. They were not, shall we say, shy about voic- ing their displeasure. And Jones couldn't help but notice. "I'm not gonna lie – I spent a lot of time crying, feeling bad for myself," he said. "I tried having a thick skin about having people say stuff, but I'm just turning 20 next month. I'm still a kid, and it hurt." Jones hit bottom in December, when he missed being eligible for the Tick- etCity Bowl by the slimmest of margins – literally one credit, he said. So he improved his time-manage- ment skills in the spring semester – he said he went so far as to tack up the syllabus for each class above his bed to monitor his academic progress – and said he is in no danger of being inel- igible for next season. In fact, he thinks he's going to get all Bs. And coach Bill O'Brien reported that Jones "got better every day" dur- ing spring practice, adding, "I really enjoy being around Paul Jones." (The two apparently share a similar sense of humor.) Meaning that Jones is ex- actly where he wants to be – in the mix for the starting quarterback posi- tion. "I could not be more proud of him for having gone through and come out of the things that have transpired up un- til this point," said Jones' father, Paul Sr. "And more importantly, as far as my wife and I are concerned, we could not have asked for a better sit- uation with him being the oldest of six. It really helps out that he has endured some adversity and come out on the other side to be a beacon for his younger siblings." Or, as Jones himself put it: "A lot of people say they would do anything to be in my shoes right now, and I don't want to do anything to waste this mo- ment." Jones isn't one of those kids who grew up loving football. He had to be talked into playing the sport. He loved baseball and basketball. He played youth football, too – and his fa- ther was a high school football official – but as the biggest kid on the team, he played on the line. Then a middle- school gym teacher saw Jones mess- 22 J U N E 1 , 2 0 1 2 ing around with friends, and he alert- ed the Sto-Rox football coach, Jason Ruscitto, about the middle-school- er's powerful arm. Ruscitto began seeking out Jones when he stopped by the middle school. "He would avoid me," Ruscitto said. "Oh yeah, he did not want to talk to the football coach." So Ruscitto talked to Paul Sr., who was surprised to learn that the foot- ball coach was interested in his son. "I recall he said, 'You know, Mr. Jones, I really need your son on my football team,' and I said, 'Well, you know, Coach, you better get to talk- ing to him. This is the first I've ever heard of Junior considering playing football.' " Jones agreed to come out for the team the week before the season started. By his sophomore year, he was showing up for practice at 6 a.m. Then he started the season's first game and threw for nearly 300 yards and the winning touchdown in overtime. "From that point on," Ruscitto said, "he really gravitated to the football side of things." In three years as the starter at Class AA Sto-Rox, Jones threw for 5,667 yards and 60 touchdowns. He was ranked the No. 2 high school quar- terback in the nation by Scout.com, No. 8 by Rivals.com. And by this time, he was so committed to football that he graduated early from Sto-Rox – passing up an opportunity to play basketball for a team that had a chance to go to states, his father not- ed – and enrolled at Penn State in Jan- uary 2010. Jones played his last high school game at the U.S. Army All-American Bowl. He and his parents flew back to Pittsburgh, and two hours later, they were on the road for State College. "He literally came home long enough to get his final home-cooked meal, and we were loaded up and headed to State," Paul Sr. said. Once he arrived, Jones – a chatty, engaging guy who likes telling stories and who became buddies with Ruscit- to's autistic son – found himself en- joying the social scene. When Penn State decided to redshirt him, he found himself even less interested in his studies. PAUL JONES "A lot of people say they would do anything to be in my shoes right now. I don't want to waste this moment. " "I was like, 'Forget it. I came here to play football,' " he said. "They took foot- ball away from me, I'm not going to do school." Despite that, Jones said he was "shocked" when he was first informed he was academically ineligible. So was his father, who stressed that the problem was not, as has been theorized by some, that Sto-Rox simply didn't prepare his son for college-level work. Said Paul Sr., "My wife and I, our ad- vice to Junior has always been, 'You know what? You are your biggest ob- stacle.' " Jones, however, continued to neg- lect his homework. He said he's a pro- crastinator who tends to leave every- thing until the final month of the se- mester, and he was just unable to catch up. The second time he was ruled aca- demically ineligible, in summer 2011, he sat down with his mom, academic adviser Todd Kulka and then-quarter- backs coach Jay Paterno to consider to two options: junior college, or stay at Penn State and buckle down. Jones said he was "outside of my body, thinking, 'I can't believe I put my- self in this situation,' " and he chose the latter. But he still didn't quite turn the academic corner. He said that Tom Bradley, after taking over as head coach, repeatedly told him, "You're cut- ting it too close. You wouldn't be here if you were a knucklehead. You can do this work. I don't know what's wrong with you." And then Jones fell one credit shy of being eligible for the Ticket City Bowl. He was crushed. It was "one final hur- dle," said Ruscitto, who saw Jones over the holidays and said his former play- er didn't appear to be as depressed as he said he was. Jones returned to campus, met the new coaching staff and said he sat up a little straighter when O'Brien told the squad in a meeting, "Everybody has a clean slate." He followed the syllabus for each class, turning in assignments as they were due. And he tried to relax. "At the end of last fall, I put too much stress on myself to the point that I would know the answer, but I would second-guess myself and erase it and put a different answer," said Jones, who's enrolled in the College of Edu- cation. "I was able to step back, say, 'You know this stuff,' relax and take the test." Paul Sr., who thinks his son's turn- ing point came because he felt terri- ble that he was letting down his teammates, said his son simply ma- tured. "He realized that the task at hand wasn't anything that was so monu- mental that it was going to take some earth-shattering and redesigning, re- W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M

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