By T. Scott Boatright
William Augustus “Dub” Jones, considered to be Ruston gridiron royalty, died early Saturday morning at the age of 99, one month shy of his 100th birthday.
Jones was born Dec. 29, 1924, in Arcadia and after graduating from Ruston High attended LSU on a scholarship for a year before being transferred to Tulane University in New Orleans as part of a World War II-era U.S. Navy training program.
He played football at Tulane for two seasons before being drafted by the NFL’s Chicago Cardinals as well as the Miami Seahawks, a team from the All-American Football Conference (AAFC), an upstart league in its first year challenging the NFL.
He was traded to the Brookly Dodgers of the AAFC before Paul Brown, head coach of the league’s Cleveland Browns, traded the No. 1 overall pick to bring Daddy to the Browns.
Brown starred in Cleveland for the next eight years.
That first year Dub was playing for Cleveland, the Browns won all of their games and the AAFC championship. The team repeated as champions in 1949, but the AAFC dissolved at the end of the year and the Browns joined the NFL.
Dub, a tall, rangy player, went to the Browns as a defensive back but moved to halfback before Paul Brown created a new position to feature him — flanker.
And that flanker who was both a running and receiving threat, remained a key part of Browns teams that won NFL championships in 1950, 1954 and 1955.
He was twice named to the Pro Bowl, the NFL’s all-star game, including in 1951, when he set an NFL single game touchdown record with six, a mark he now shares with the New Orleans’ Alvin Kamara along with a pair of late former standouts — Ernie Nevers and Gayle Sayers.
Jones finished his NFL career with 2,210 rushing on 540 carries along with 171 receptions for 2,874 yards, totaling a combined 41 touchdowns in the process.
But it was that six-touchdown record he was maybe most proud of, other than his family.
“There’s one record dad is a part of that I don’t know can ever be broken — it’s hard to imagine it happening,” said Dub’s son Bert Jones, a Ruston High and LSU standout who went on to play in the NFL for the Baltimore Colts and Los Angeles Rams. “And that’s that the Browns played in 10 championship games in a row, which was the Super Bowl back then.”
Jones was a “no-nonsense” type of player who simply played the game with no flamboyancy.
“He didn’t like self-promotion. He believed in team. Being part of a team,” son Ben Jones told TigerRag.com. “Let your play speak for you. No dancing in the end zone. That used to drive him nuts. And also he didn’t want you being a hypochondriac. He said, ‘Look, your leg ain’t broke. Get up and walk off the field.’”
After retiring from his playing career Jones returned to Lincoln Parish, working at a Simsboro sawmill before returning to the Browns in 1963 as a coach.
He coached until 1968 but also did some football consulting work after returning to the sawmill, including working with someone who became a longtime friend — legendary Grambling football coach Eddie Robinson.
“He brought the Cleveland Browns playbook to show Coach Rob, and that’s how Grambling went from a straight Wing-T (offense) to a Pro-Set,” Bert Jones said. “So, every year Dad would go work some with Grambling,”
Wilbert Ellis was an assistant baseball coach at Grambling at the time and remembers Jones’ influence.
“He was a special man who was very good to everyone he met,” Ellis said. “He never did see color. He and Coach Rob became very close and Dub spent quite a bit of time in Grambling visiting with Coach and working with our football receivers and showing them how to run routes and things like that. The Jones and Robinson families were close friends.
“It’s a big loss because he was so important to the whole parish way back when. He was a great man.”
Jones is survived by five sons, two daughters, 22 grandchildren, 48 great grandchildren and his wife, Schump, whom he met in junior high school in Ruston.
“He was a great father,” Ben Jones said. “He was devoted to his family. He was hard working. He was an entrepreneur. There were challenges being a small business owner — financial stresses. But he was steady through it all.”
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