By Mark Eckel | Engagement Insider
Freddie Jones retired from the NFL at the age of 30 to spend more time with his family. Nearly 10 years later, that “family” has increased.
Jones, the former tight end for the San Diego Chargers and Arizona Cardinals, is coaching football along with another former NFL player, George Teague, at the June Shelton School in Dallas, Texas.
Shelton isn’t your typical Texas high school football team, like the ones you watched on “Friday Night Lights.” The school is set up for students who have learning disabilities.
“All of our kids have some type of learning issue, whether it be dyslexia or something else,” Jones said. “Few of them have the same issue. So I may go over a play one time, and a few of them get it, but the rest don’t. So I go over it again, and a few more get it; and so on until they all get it.
“It’s a challenge, and I have to have a lot of patience, but it’s also what makes it so satisfying.”
Jones, who grew up in Washington D.C. was a second-round pick of the Chargers out of the University of North Carolina in 1997. He played five years for San Diego before signing as a free agent with the Arizona Cardinals in 2002.
In his career he caught 404 passes for 4,232 yards and 22 touchdowns. His best season came in 2000 for the Chargers when he caught 71 passes for 766 yards and five touchdowns.
In 2005 he signed with the Carolina Panthers, but never played a game there.
“My reason for retiring was to spend time with my wife and new born child,” Jones said. “It was a difficult decision, but I talked it over with my wife, I called my pastor, and I just decided it was the right thing to do.
“I enjoyed playing the game. I was a football player. I made good money. The question was: Is it worth missing my family? I wanted to be fair to my wife, and I didn’t want to miss my son.”
Jones, as he says, “retired on his terms” and walked away from a new contract. Didn’t stop playing because he couldn’t play any longer, but because he wanted to be a full-time father.
Now, he’s a father figure to a team full of students.
“I knew George from mutual acquaintances,” Jones said. “He was coaching at Carrollton Christian at the time and asked me if I wanted to coach with him.
“Coaching wasn’t anything I had thought about before, but my son was a little older now, I had some free time. I thought about it and I wanted to be a dad not just to my kids, but be a role model for others, be a mentor.”
When Tegaue left Carrollton, a good football program, for June Shelton, where he is also the athletic director, he wanted Jones to come with him.
It was decision time again.
“George came in one day and said ‘we’re leaving’. I had never heard of June Shelton. (Carrollton) wanted me to stay, and George wanted me to go with him. Of course, I went with him.”
And found a whole new way of coaching football.
“We get kids from all over, so that qualifies us as a big school, but that doesn’t mean we’re a big football school,” Jones said. “When we first got there we had to take classes to show us what we were dealing with and how to deal with it.
“I had to learn to write on a mirror to help the kids who had dyslexia.”
Jones says he doesn’t use the “I played in the NFL” speech on his kids. Some of them, through their fathers, know his background, others don’t.
“I never tell them what I did in terms of playing at the NFL level,” Jones said. “What I tell them is how hard I worked to get there and that if they work hard they can achieve things as well.”