My first true encounter with Coach Stan Jones was in 1994, when I interviewed at Shoney’s with him to be his assistant basketball coach. We talked about basketball, life, and just about everything in between. Near the end of our conversation, he asked me one last question: “If you heard someone talking bad about us at a nearby booth, would you get up and say something to them?”

I told him I would.

When Coach Jones got into town this past Wednesday, we had supper together, and I reminded him of that interview. I told him I still did not know whether my answer to his question was what got me the job. He replied, “You got the job, didn’t you?”

Yes, Coach, I did, and all these years later, I am still grateful.

I have thought about that question many times since 1994, and I have used it in every interview I have been part of since. At first, I just wanted to see what people would say. Believe it or not, the way someone answers tells you quite a bit about them. I believe Coach Jones wanted to know whether I would stand up for the people I worked with and be loyal to the team. I went to Shoney’s hoping to get a coaching job, with no idea that I was also meeting someone who would influence me as a basketball coach, husband, dad, educator, and leader for the rest of my life.

The next evening, hundreds of people gathered at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame to honor Coach Jones and raise money for the Sherard Shaw Foundation for Pediatric Cancer Research and the McLean Fletcher Center. His basketball coaching career gave everyone plenty to celebrate, and seeing so many people there showed how far his influence has reached.

Coach Jones’s coaching résumé is impressive. He led Jackson Academy to back-to-back overall state championships before coaching at the University of Miami, with the Washington Wizards in the NBA, at Mississippi State, and then for more than two decades at Florida State. In 2019, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the College Basketball Assistant Coach Hall of Fame. He has coached at levels most of us only watch from a distance. I admire those accomplishments, and I value what he taught the people who worked and played for him even more.

I can say without a doubt that Coach Jones is one of the best coaches I have ever seen. His playbook was about as thick as a Sears catalog and probably could have been used as a boat anchor. I studied it all the time because he expected every player to know not only what they were supposed to do, but what the other four players were supposed to do as well. He wanted us to understand how the whole team worked together.

Then there were his motivational talks. Listening to Coach Jones could give you chill bumps. His players would have run through a wall for him because they knew how much he believed in them and how much he expected of them. Even while challenging us to give our best, he showed us what servant leadership should look like, and was the model of what transformational leadership is.

Coach Jones knew far more than plays. Inside and outside the gym, he held people to high expectations and treated them with respect. He valued execution, and he valued the people doing the work. You never had to guess where you stood with him. He could be brutally honest, but he was fair, and he was willing to listen when you saw something differently. As a young assistant, I was learning how to coach basketball, and I was learning just as much about how to work with people.

Coach Jones would often say, “Be the best,” “Don’t stop believing,” and “Never forget where you came from.” I have carried those words with me long after my coaching days. They have encouraged me through challenges in education and leadership, and they have mattered at home as well. He pushed people to reach for more while reminding them to stay grounded and remember those who helped them along the way.

He also showed me how much a person can accomplish without holding the head coach’s title. Coach Jones had already been a successful head coach when he became a college assistant. For nearly three decades, he helped build programs, prepare teams, and develop players from that role. His example taught me to give my best to the work in front of me and to invest in the people beside me.

As a lifelong mentor, Stan has helped shape the future through the many people he has influenced. We need to remember the value of that kind of leadership and offer it to others. Leadership needs more people like Coach Stan Jones.

I have shared this quote from the movie The Emperor’s Club before, and I believe it speaks to Coach Jones’s influence too:

“A great teacher has little external history to record. His life goes over into other lives. These men are pillars in the intimate structure of our schools. They are more essential than its stones or beams, and they will continue to be a kindling force and a revealing power in our lives.”

I hope you have a mentor in your life like the ones I have had and still have. We need people who will invest in us, regardless of our age, so that we can invest in others. That is true in coaching, education, and every other part of life.

When I think back to that table at Shoney’s, I smile. I was in awe of Coach Jones then, and I was just beginning to learn who he was. His last interview question was about standing up for a team. His example over the years has taught me much more: to be dependable, to give my best, to keep believing, and to care for people beyond the role they play.

Coach Jones, thank you for giving me the job. Thank you even more for the conversations, the lessons, your example, and a friendship I will always value. I am a better person because our paths crossed. Seeing hundreds of people gather to honor him reminded me that many others could say the same. I hope I can pass along even a smidgen of the influence he has given me.

As you step into your role today, remember that you are not just an educator and leader but a shaper of the future. Your actions and decisions profoundly impact the lives of those you guide. Go, be the great educator and leader that our future needs.

Remember… Think Leadership and Be For Others…

©2026 J Clay Norton

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