K. C. Jones

• Born: May 25, 1932
• Birthplace: Taylor, Texas
• Died: December 25, 2020
• Place of death: Connecticut

Sport: Basketball

Early Life

K. C. Jones was born on May 25, 1932, in Taylor, Texas. His father worked as a restaurant cook and an oilfield worker. Eula Jones, his mother, split her time between her five children and her work as a maid. Through the Great Depression, the Joneses moved from town to town, wherever the parents could find work. Because the family moved so frequently, Jones’s education suffered and he never learned to read well. He was shy and ashamed in class; the only time he felt like himself was when he sang in the church choir or played sports. His first experiences in sports were in tennis, softball, and football. “In McGregor, Texas,” Jones recalled in his book, Rebound (1986), “the girls played basketball, so I was a little suspicious of it.”

The Road to Excellence

Jones did not remain a stranger to basketball for long. After his father abandoned the family and his mother moved the clan to San Francisco, he played nearly every day at a recreation center near his home. There he developed a deadly set shot. He took his skills with him to Commerce High School, where he broke the AAA Prep League scoring record and made the all-Northern California all-star team. There he was an all-star in football as well.

Because he was not a great student, Jones did not have high expectations of finding a job after high school. He did not consider college, but Mildred Smith, his high school history teacher, made a telephone call to University of San Francisco (USF) basketball coach Phil Woolpert. She told the coach that she saw something great in the young Jones. “Her caring changed my life,” wrote Jones in Rebound. Eventually, the coach offered him a scholarship.

The summer before college, Jones grew 4 inches to 6 feet 1 inch. With his added height, however, he lost his shooting touch. In his freshman season at USF, he closed with a meager 5.6-points-per-game scoring average. He then decided to change his style of play and become the catalyst for the team. Although he would not score many points, he would make sure that his teammates did. He mastered defense and passing and hustled every minute of the game.

The Emerging Champion

In the fall of 1952, Jones met his new roommate, a 6-foot 9-inch freshman named Bill Russell, who was recognized twenty-eight years later as the greatest player in the history of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Jones and Bill Russell became inseparable friends. Jones recalled in Rebound, “I guess by the time we graduated from USF, Bill Russell and I had talked, studied, worked, practiced, and played as much defensive basketball as any two people ever had.” Together, the two friends led the USF basketball team to undefeated seasons and two national championships, in 1954–55 and 1955–56. Jones also played on the US Olympic basketball team that won a gold medal in 1956.

Jones’s and Russell’s inseparability carried over to their professional basketball careers, when the two were chosen by the Boston Celtics in the 1956 NBA draft. Jones joined the team after first serving two years in the US Army.

As a professional basketball player, Jones resumed his role as the scrapping defensive player. Battling under the offensive and defensive backboards, he always seemed to be the first one to come up with a loose ball. While in a Celtic uniform, Jones played on eight consecutive NBA Championship teams. His coach, Red Auerbach, claimed that every time he put Jones into the game, things would turn the Celtics’ way.

Continuing the Story

When Jones retired as a Celtic player, he became an assistant coach at Harvard University for one year (1967–68) and then head coach at Brandeis University for four years (1968–71). When he returned to the NBA as assistant coach to Bill Sharman of the Los Angeles Lakers, he earned his ninth NBA Championship ring as the Lakers went on to win the finals in 1971–72.

The next year, Jones got his first job as a head coach in the pros. He directed the San Diego Conquistadors of the American Basketball Association (ABA) to an unexpected playoff spot with a 30–54 record. The next season, 1973–74, Jones was offered a three-year contract to coach the NBA Washington Bullets (then called the Capital Bullets). He created a stunning team defense for the Bullets and coupled it with a fast-break offense. The Bullets had a 47–35 record in 1973–74 and took the Eastern Conference Championship the following season. However, the Bullets lost four in a row to the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals. In the 1975–76 season, Jones was fired by the Bullets.

Jones rebounded from this setback, though. After coaching the Milwaukee Bucks as an assistant for half of the 1976–77 season, he was hired as an assistant on his old team, the Boston Celtics. From 1978 to 1982, the Celtics were a winning team, but they often fell short in the playoffs. In 1983, when Jones was named head coach, the Celtics’ fortunes changed. He renewed the team’s spirit, and in 1984 they defeated the Los Angeles Lakers for the NBA Championship. In 1985, the Celtics again appeared in the NBA Finals, but lost to the Lakers. In 1986, they were again world champions, this time vanquishing the Houston Rockets in the finals. In 1987, an injury-riddled Celtics team managed to win the Eastern Conference title and then fell to the Lakers in the finals.

At the conclusion of the 1987–88 campaign, Jones was appointed vice president of the Celtics. In 1989, he received the ultimate honor in basketball when he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In 1989, he took an assistant coaching position with the Seattle SuperSonics; he soon became the head coach and stayed until midway through the 1991–92 season. He served as an assistant coach with the Detroit Pistons during the 1994–95 season.

For the 1995–96 and 1996–97 campaigns, Jones rejoined the Celtics as an assistant coach under M. L. Carr. As a head coach in the NBA, Jones won 522 regular season games and compiled a .674 winning percentage, which is one of the best coaching marks of all time in the NBA. From 1997 to 1999, he was the head coach of the New England Blizzard in the Women’s American Basketball League. His quiet style of coaching always produced winning teams and earned him the deepest respect from all the athletes who played for him.

After a struggle with Alzheimer's, Jones died at the age of eighty-eight on December 25, 2020, at a Connecticut assisted living facility.

Summary

When K. C. Jones coached the Celtics to the 1986 NBA Championship, he won an unprecedented twelfth world championship ring. For his lifetime achievements, he was elected to California’s Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame in 1986, and his number, twenty-five, was retired by the Celtics and hung with the championship banners in Boston Garden (and later its replacement, TD Garden).

Bibliography

Bjarkman, Peter C. Boston Celtics Encyclopedia. Champaign, Ill.: Sports, 2002.

Goldstein, Richard. "K.C. Jones, Celtics Standout Player and Coach, Dies at 88." The New York Times, 25 Dec. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/12/25/sports/kc-jones-dead.html. Accessed 9 Apr. 2021.

Johnson, Dick, and Robert Hamilton Johnson. The Celtics in Black and White. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia, 2006.

Jones, K. C., and Jack D. Warner. Rebound. Boston: Quinlan Press, 1986.

Wallechinsky, David, and Jaime Loucky. The Complete Book of the Olympics: 2008 Edition. London: Aurum Press, 2008.

Whalen, Thomas J. Dynasty’s End: Bill Russell and the 1968-69 World Champion Boston Celtics. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004.