MY NEW HERO
James Jones
I grew up homeless for the first 15 years of my life. I was in and out of homeless shelters, in and out of motels. My mother and father were heavy drug users. Actually, a lot of my family members were heavy drug users. It was a rough childhood. Nobody knew how hard my situation was but me. I moved in with my grandmother when I was going into high school. By moving in with her, I was able to go to the same high school for all four years, able to have the same friends, have the same home to live in, have some stability for the first time in my whole life. My main inspiration and my main hunger to be successful was my mom. When I was real young, I want to say maybe four or five years old, I told my mom that I was going to make it to the NFL and buy her a home. I had a vision and a belief that no matter what happened, no matter what anybody said, I was going to make it to the NFL. And that was my main drive. I’m not saying I was the perfect kid and I didn’t get in trouble, but there were a lot times when my friends were going to do drugs or going to sell this or that, and my mom’s face would flash in my head. That would remind me to go the other way or go to the gym. I was extremely motivated to change the whole situation.
I devote a lot of time, energy, column inches, and brain cells to parsing what I think is wrong with this world. Lord knows there’s no lack of material, but sometimes I find myself thinking that perhaps it would be good to spotlight something that most definitely is NOT wrong with our world. There are actually are a lot of very good, uplifting stories…if only one cares to look.
James Jones’ story is one we could all learn from, and, told in his own words, it’s as inspiring as it is sad. Now a wide receiver with the NFL’s Oakland Raiders, Jones is the very picture of success- wealthy, talented, active in his community…but the back story is an impressive tale of perseverance over some pretty daunting circumstances. Looking at Jones today, you’d never know he was homeless until he was 15. You’d never know the temptations to go astray he managed to cast aside.
We look at professional athletes and what we see are their acts of supreme athletic talent. What we often fail to recognize is that their job is but a very small part of who they are. Like anyone else, they have families, mortgages, car payments, and other responsibilities to meet. They have personal issues, addiction problems, financial difficulties- in short, they face the same sorts of life issues you and I do…albeit perhaps on a very different (and certainly far less private) scale.
To his credit, Jones has embraced his past and is using it to inform how he lives his life, raises his children, and serves his community. Off the football field, he understands that he can using his story and his experiences to make a difference…and to his credit, he’s heavily invested and involved in doing exactly that.
To me, it’s more important to touch somebody’s life than to catch touchdowns on the football field. When I first got drafted, when I first made it to the National Football League, I told my wife that I wanted to start a foundation to give back because you can throw for as many yards as you want to throw for, catch as many touchdowns as you want to catch, but at the end of the day, I felt that God put me in this position to help and change other people’s lives. And I felt like if I wasn’t doing that, I wasn’t truly using all of the ability God gave me. I felt like he blessed me to make it to the NFL to do such things as help the homeless shelters because that’s the way I grew up. It means a lot more to me to change somebody’s life, to change a little kid’s life, than to go on the football field and win games or catch 1,000 touchdowns. It means more when I see little kids light up and when I’m able to change their lives and inspire them with my story.
We hear so much of selfish, self-absorbed, childish athletes who believe they were to the manor born and who define themselves and their self-worth by the size of their contracts. Their lives are celebrations of themselves and they revel in their status and the adulation directed at them. The truth is that there are many athletes who fit this description, just as there are immature and self-absorbed people in other walks of life. Of course, no one cares about an accountant with an alcohol, drug, or gambling problem. Athletes live in a fishbowl, so their lives are considered to be open books by the media and fans.
In Jones’ case, he recognizes that he has a platform, and in that he’s found a purpose that seems far more important to him than anything he could do on a football field. He may well catch 1,000 touchdown passes, but he finds more joy and purpose in improving the lives of children and the homeless. Catch a touchdown pass, and you might help your team win a game. Change a life, and more often than not that life stays changed.
Eventually, James Jones’ football career will come to an end, the reality that every athlete faces, in most cases sooner than they might wish. I have a feeling that he’ll make a smooth transition to civilian life, where he’ll continue to impact his community in very positive ways. In the end, he’ll make a difference far greater than anything he might ever do on a football field…and I think he’ll be pretty OK with that.
If you’re looking for someone to hold up to your child as a role model, you could do far worse than Jones, who knows how fortunate he is and what he can do to help make the world a better place. The fact that he plays football is almost beside the point…except for the platform it provides him.
If James Jones isn’t a hero, I don’t know who would be.
