Ulysses Jones Jr. Leaves a Legacy Woven Through Southern Lab
by Robin Fambrough // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
Schools are seldom used to host a memorial service. For Ulysses S. Jones Jr., a final return to Southern University and the Southern Lab gymnasium is appropriate.
“I always knew I had a great father,” Aubrey Jones said of his father. “But now I truly understand what a great man he was.
“Since he passed, I have heard from so many people who are telling me how he impacted their lives. It’s amazing.”
Jones, an SU and Southern Lab graduate, spent the majority of his life and career on the SU campus, with nearly 40 years at Southern Lab. He died last week at 74 following a long illness.
Visitation is set for 8 a.m. Saturday with services to follow at 11 a.m. in the SLHS gym.
Other than a brief stint as an assistant coach at Capitol in the 1980s, Jones was SU and Southern Lab through and through before retiring in 2014. He was best known as the girls’ basketball and baseball coach at the Class 1A school.
“I’ve been knowing coach Jones since I was five or six years old,” Southern Lab director Herman Brister Jr. said. “I played little league football with his son and then knew him as a student at Southern Lab.
“Coach Jones was always fair. He did not care who your parents were or if you were the best player, worst player, best or worst student.
“He treated everybody the same. His knowledge of Southern and Southern Lab was incredible. He always found ways to drop nuggets of knowledge to you.”
The son of SU’s first athletic director, Ulysses S. Jones Sr., Jones was a standout basketball player at Southern Lab, graduating in 1969. He played basketball and was the punter for the football team at SU during the years when his father was mapping out plans for the university’s athletic department and the Bayou Classic.
“My Dad grew up living on the campus,” Aubrey Jones noted. “There were three houses in one spot for staff, and he grew up in one of them.”
Jones filled many roles at Southern Lab. His stint as girls’ basketball coach was notable.
“I was at the hospital the day before he passed,” former Southern Lab star Tara Eackles Morris said. “I was holding his hand and wanted to let him know just how much I appreciate him. When I got to Southern Lab, I was just a 6-foot-5, raw kid.
“Coach Jones taught me basketball. He was my trainer and coach. He taught me how to shoot a basketball and how to do a sky hook (like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and gave me No. 13, which was Wilt Chamberlain’s number.
“Without him, there would have been no next level at Baylor. He made that possible.”
Current Southern Lab coach Krystal Flowers credits Jones for seeing her athletic potential. Flowers went on to be part of the Kittens’ early 2000s dynasty with future LSU player Quianna Chaney and future Louisville player Courtney Simmons.
“(Jones was) the first person who saw something in me that I did not see in myself,” Flowers wrote on Facebook. “The one who put a basketball in my hands. Forever grateful for the impact, belief, and opportunity.”
Britney Hurst Temple came to Southern Lab as a sophomore and found a supporter in Jones.
“Coach Jones was always so positive and kind,” Temple said. “He would get on you when he needed to. He was so supportive of what I did, and like the other coaches, he encouraged me to play multiple sports.”
Jones made an impact on so many others. Glen Oaks football coach Byron Wade, a former SLHS football-baseball player, and Zachary High assistant principal Delwyn Daigre, a Kitten and Louisiana Tech football standout, shared their stories.
“Coach Jones played a big part in who I am and the things I’m doing today,” Daigre said. “He always preached to us about tradition … the winning that took place competitively in sports and also in the classroom.
“I took his math class as a freshman. He expected the same excellence that was required on the field of play in the classroom. He didn’t let you slack …. he demanded excellence. He played a role in me serving in education today.”
Wade doesn’t mince words, either.
“First and foremost, coach Jones is my absolute favorite coach in my life,” Wade said. “And I had Joel Hawkins as my basketball coach, and Eric Randall was my football coach.
“I came to Southern Lab in the ninth grade, and he made me feel like a Southern Lab kid. Because it’s a kindergarten through 12th-grade school, that’s not always easy. He helped me earn my right to be a Kitten. He pushed us mentally, and those lessons I use today.”
Former Southern Lab football coach Mike Roach first met Jones, then a graduate assistant coach, at an SU basketball camp when he was in elementary school. Jones was later his position coach during his brief stint away at Capitol High.
“When I came to Southern Lab (in the 1990s), I was a head football coach for the first time, and there was a lot I didn’t know,” Roach said. “Coach Jones was my offensive coordinator that first year. Coach Jones and Coach Kevin Augustine helped with LHSAA stuff, like eligibility.
“Nobody can match his knowledge about Southern University and Southern Lab. I always told him he should write a book.”