Dan The Road Trip Guy
Join Dan the Road Trip Guy as he explores the adventures, memories, and life lessons of diverse guests from all walks of life. This podcast goes beyond the road to celebrate the journey of life by uncovering stories of passion, resilience, and the pursuit of happiness. Whether you’re a seasoned traveler or simply love a good story, Dan the Road Trip Guy will leave you inspired and ready to embrace your own adventures. Buckle up and enjoy the ride!
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Dan The Road Trip Guy
Small Town Wisdom: From Kentucky Roots to Basketball Courts, Part 1
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My guest today is Howard Jones—though to me, and many others, he’s best known as Mr. Jones or Coach Jones. He played a significant role in my childhood while I was growing up in the small Kentucky town of Pine Knot. As an educator, Coach impacted countless lives throughout the county. He also served our country with time in the Army and cultivated a thriving garden over the years. And, as you'll hear at the end of this episode, he shares some truly meaningful life advice.
Coach Jones's remarkable journey unfolds in this heartfelt conversation about resilience, mentorship, and the power of community influence. Born in a small Kentucky home where his family saved pennies for soda bottle deposits, Coach Jones transformed his humble beginnings into a lifetime of impact as an educator and coach.
The story follows Coach Jones from his childhood friendship with my Uncle Robert Bartley through his college years at Cumberland and Eastern Kentucky University, revealing how determination overcame financial obstacles at every turn. When he arrived at Pine Knot High School in 1955, he inherited a basketball program that had fallen on hard times—a perfect canvas for his philosophy that "we may not have the talent, but we're going to outwork
Coach Jones served his country in the Army, spending time stationed in Germany, where he also coached the base basketball team. Upon returning to Pine Knot, he put the leadership skills he had honed abroad to work, turning a struggling basketball program into a powerhouse—leading the team to an impressive 27-win season and a berth in the regional tournament.
Beyond the wins and losses, Coach Jones's greatest legacy may be his elementary school basketball program, where he focused on fundamentals without cutting players. His teaching methods—like placing tape on the floor to help young players understand positioning—showcase the creative problem-solving that defined his coaching style.
Throughout the conversation, Coach Jones's humility shines through as he shares wisdom gained over decades: get as much education as possible, take care of your body, and live in a way that makes your children proud. His story reminds us that sometimes the greatest victories happen long after the final buzzer, measured in the lives touched and values instilled rather than points on a scoreboard.
Subscribe, share, and join us next time as we continue exploring the extraordinary stories of ordinary people who've made all the difference in their communities and beyond.
Welcome to Dan the Road Trip Guy. I'm your host, Dan, and each week we'll embark on a new adventure, discovering memories and life lessons of our incredible guests. From everyday travelers to thrill seekers and everyone in between, this podcast is your front row seat to inspiring stories of passion, resilience and the pursuit of happiness. So buckle up and enjoy the ride. I am excited today to talk with my guest.
Speaker 1:He had a huge influence in my life from grade school on, through high school and beyond. He's the first basketball coach I ever knew in the second or third fourth grade I don't remember the exact time, but I do have a letter he sent out to families introducing basketball in our small Kentucky town. He was a physical education teacher at the high school. He was the athletic director also. He did a lot at our high school. It was a small school. He had a way of encouraging you that just made you feel good about yourself. I really believe you're going to enjoy my conversation with him, especially if you grew up in McQuarrie County, Kentucky, attending Pine Awe High School. So I'm excited to talk to Coach Jones. Welcome to the show, Coach. Welcome to the show, Coach Jones.
Speaker 2:Thank you, sir.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad you're here. It's been a long time since we've connected. But take me on a journey because I don't really know. I always knew you lived in Pinot, but I don't know anything before that.
Speaker 2:So take us through that okay, let's start out here that my hometown was corbett, kentucky, and I was born in a house that's still there, so what's to say? And my parents were blue-collar workers. My father was a machinist with a railroad company, worked the night shift in the evening till midnight and then he struggled the next morning for four or five hours for anything the neighbor wanted done. But everyone in my neighborhood there was no money. Almost Everyone was what I would say was poor. We struggled all the time. Now, one story I want to give you is when I was uh, oh, approaching teenage, rc potluck company williamsburg started their soda factory and a fella came through the neighborhood with a car and we had an introductory offer on a car that we could go to the grocery and get six RC bottle sodas free. But we had to pay two cents on the bottle, which was 12 cents, and I remember our family saving money to get the 12 cents.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And my father had just as good a job as anybody in the neighborhood. In our neighborhood we all wore the same clothes, ate the same food, so as to say I wore the same clothes, ate the same food. So as to say, as far as the food, everyone raised a garden. My family had a cow and a hog. We killed each year and a lot of the people did so. That was more or less how I got started Well to school, to a one-room school for three years, and then they had an opening at the elementary school with it that it was in the same building as the high school and that was Ledgap High and Elementary. So I transferred to that school in the fourth grade and there I met your uncle, Robert Bartley, who became my best friend.
Speaker 1:Oh my, I did not know that.
Speaker 2:Okay and we were in school together, through college, almost so as to say, and I'll elaborate just a little bit on that. Just a little bit on that. Our school was really similar to Pine Otter's size and subjects. We had an elementary and a high school in the same building with a shop attached and we had a gymnasium and a football field and that was pretty much it Right.
Speaker 2:I went there and then in a couple of years a fellow moved, came to stay with his grandfather, whose father was killed in the mines in Harlan County, which you know was up the road, so as to say from where I live. He became a real good friend and I had another friend we didn't quite gee as much as these two. All four of us were the only four to graduate from college, get a degree from college. They had partly taught a while. So did those guys named from Harlan County was Clyde Haack.
Speaker 2:He graduated at Eastern with a degree in industrial arts and he taught industrial arts at Western for a while and they offered him the head of the department at Bellingham College in the state of Washington and he went there and he died about eight or nine years ago with some type of cancer problem. They just hit him and he died just in a few hours, and so Mr Bartley is gone, and then the other fellow is also gone, and all four of us taught some. You know, so it's. I even know that I taught. Well, my wife did also. I taught 40 years, and she did, or 40-plus years, just maybe, and we went from there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you went to Cumberland College, right?
Speaker 2:After high school I went to Cumberland College on a work ship. Then I worked two hours each day doing something and my job at Cumberland was to clean the room that the president of the college taught physics in, and man, he had chalk all over the place. I had a job I enjoyed that Went to Cumberland three semesters I didn't know, you know, money was scarce, I didn't know how long I was going to make it, so as to say, but anyhow it took just as many hours as it would let me, and I finished the three semesters over there. I graduated from Cumberland Junior College and went to Eastern Kentucky, which is now Eastern Kentucky University, at midterm and went four semesters there and finished my degree Well in college. Then Bartley went to Union College, my best friend. I was at Cumberland, and the next year then that one semester I was at Cumberland, bartley came there and we roomed together and I left at midterm and he came to Eastern, then the next year there and we roomed there, I guess about three semesters at Eastern. Wow.
Speaker 2:But Bartley was certainly he was valedictorian of our class. I always enjoyed him. I enjoyed math and he was real good in math and I know the teacher would make the assignments and give us a few minutes there to work on our assignments and I always would check with Bartlett to see if our answers were the same, because he was 100%.
Speaker 1:Wow, I didn't know you all went to Eastern also together. That's something I didn't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were at Eastern together and really at Eastern then. I don't remember the why, but he didn't finish in the four years, four, eight semesters of four years.
Speaker 2:He lacked a few hours and I finished and at that time then we were deferred to go to college rather than to go into service okay well, this deferment here then was good for the school year and I came back to my home high school, which was Lindgif, and they needed a PE teacher which fit right in with me with what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2:So I taught PE that last semester there of my four years of college and coached the junior varsity basketball team and helped with spring football. Well, at the end of that year then I had decided that hey, I wanted to be the head coach, I want to do the head coach. I felt like the coach that I worked with and played with and so forth, played for. I felt like he had got a little bit stale, so as to say, and I wanted to get away. And he'd been there about 20 years and I wasn't about to kick him out, so as to say, if I could. I was taught in college that when you are looking for a job, look for a hope and don't look to take somebody else's job.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:So I ended up then looking for a job, going through Easter's employment service for teachers and so forth, and found that they had an opening at Pound. Not Well, I had interviewed for a few other jobs, but I wanted to sort of stay close to Corbin, so I interviewed for this job over here and was offered the job, and to Pine Knot I came.
Speaker 1:Wow, I never knew how you got to Pine Knot, so that's interesting.
Speaker 2:Okay, now my idea in coming to Pine Knot was do as much for the community as you can do as good a job as the administration wanted you to do, teach and plus and just try to outdo everyone so as to say so. I inherited a basketball program at Pine Island. I inherited a basketball program at Pine Knot. I'm talking about the senior high school there that had not won very many games at all in the last four or five years. As a matter of fact, the year before I came, the person they had left and they didn't get a replacement and they had three men teachers and one of them had to take the team. Now can you imagine having to take the team and you didn't want to coach?
Speaker 2:and so on and so forth. Okay, now there was not much money involved. You would not believe me when I tell you how much money I made that first year I taught Because there was just no money. When I interviewed, I found out that I was in charge of everything but the school. I was a varsity coach, I was a JV coach, I was a grade school coach If I couldn't find somebody that I wanted to coach in and I was in charge of the believe it or not the cheerleaders.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure you were. Do you recall what year that was that you came to Pine Knot?
Speaker 2:It was in 1955.
Speaker 2:So I have to say that I came to Pine Knot. Then I taught that year, I got started and Uncle Sam was ready for me and the superintendent begged and pleaded to let him finish the year. It's going to disrupt us and so forth. That was in the fall even after we just started. So they agreed with him and I finished that year and somehow or another I fell through the the crack and they didn't send me an induction notice. Okay, and the superintendent wanted me to start the next year. He said I don't have anybody and I'll take a change. So I got started that next year and he fought with him with his connections so as to say, and we was able to get through that next year. And then, as soon as that year was out, I went into service, partly about that time then had gone into service, we were supposedly in service. Well, I hit the jackpot in service. So it's to say Okay.
Speaker 2:The group that I was with, I went to Fort Hood for basic and we were told that we would probably be going to Fort Sam Houston in Texas to medical school. Well, along the way we were told that we were in a gyroscope unit and that gyroscope means that we're replacing another unit. So I was placed in the 4th Armored Division that replaced the 2nd Armored Division in Germany. So instead of going to Fort Sam Houston, the Master Sergeant that was going with us conducted a real fine first aid school. We got to Germany then, and when we got to Germany there was 24 of us in so-called the medical section. We were medics and we were in reconnaissance, and you know, reconnaissance is when they send you out and you don't come back.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Enemies out there. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:We had 24 of us over there and we operated just like a little doctor's office or something. We had one doctor and two dentists and we took care of about 1,200 troops. Another attached unit there was an artillery they had that had a bunch of big old like were called Honest Johns. So we took care of that outfit and any dependents that were there.
Speaker 2:Well, we'd been there a couple days and it was getting settled in and the sergeant called us together and he said as usual, the Army forgets, forgot to send anybody to clerical school. We didn't have anybody to do the reception work there in the office and he said you won't, y'all think about it tonight. And then after Reveille then I'll call out the ones that are interested and I'll decide who's going to get first chance at it. Well, we went to the supply room and lined up and there was 12 or 15 of us and all of us had college degrees or were close. So it's to say we lined up and the guy in front said Sergeant, what do you want me to type? Well, he said in Army language. He says I don't give a you-know-what what you type, you've got one minute. And then he said whoever has the best gets first chance at it.
Speaker 2:Well, I was about in the center of the line, so as to say they were typing and sitting down and so forth, and I ended up at the back of the line by design. And when it came my turn, then oh, I need to tell you that the first guy that picked up a newspaper and tried to type one minute from a newspaper, well, the next to the rest of them just fell in line. When I got there I didn't say anything, so I typed now is the good time to come to the aid of our country. I believe we're similar to that. Sure yeah.
Speaker 2:So I rattled that off here four or five or six times or something, and he laid about there he said Joe, it's just first chance. Well, my buddies here, we were all buddies at that time. So you know, we lived together, we lived above the doctor's office, so as to say, and we knew a lot about each other. I knew that they'd been ahead. So I ended up with that. Well, the master sergeant that we had, I found out later, got his rank in combat. He didn't have, let me just say, he just didn't have a very good education. He didn't understand a lot of things that was going on. He brought me in and talked to me there and said hey, I'm going to depend on you now to run this. Well, we was near Nuremberg, germany, a little town called Schwalbach. We was near Nuremberg, Germany, a little town called Schwabe. He depended on me and the headquarters of our unit was at Gopkin, germany, and so they would call a couple times a month checking all this information. The master sergeant, he stayed pretty close there. He'd come running down the hall and he'd say, jones, get on the phone to Gopkin. Well, he'd get down the hall and he'd say, jones, get on the phone. Well, he'd get on the extension and they'd ask a question and a sergeant would cover his phone and I'd tell him that he'd tell an answer.
Speaker 2:I became real good, close friends with him and he really took care of me, so as to say, I ended up. We didn't have a lot of duties, like you know the kitchen duties, the guard duties, that's not all. That's not all, so as to say, we went on a week or so. The sergeant says the captain wants you to report to him at a certain time. Well, I did and I came in and he said and, talking with these people, he said I understand you have some coaching experience. I told him what I had done and he said would you be interested in coaching our team here? We will have a base team.
Speaker 2:I said I don't know, I'm pretty busy right now. He said we'll take care of that busy stuff. He said I need a coach. I agreed to do it and he put me on half day duty there at the dispensary and I was to select the team and be in charge of it. And he made it plain, he made a little talk to me and then he had us all together and he said hey, we're going to sponsor this team. As long as you win, we'll keep the team, otherwise we'll dispense, and so forth. Well, that had its advantages too. We had. What would you call it here? When they call you out in the morning, an alert? Alert's the word. I'm trying to think of.
Speaker 2:We had an alert about once a month about the middle of the morning and he said hey, I want you all practicing basketball when we have the alert, you all fall out and go to the gym immediately.
Speaker 2:Well, we did that. Nobody came or anything. So we took the mats down and went back to sleep. But those guys knew that they had to produce, so they really worked at it and I knew who the players were because, you know, we chit-chatted around. I had six or seven that had played college basketball. It wasn't as tough a job as it would seem and they tried to do what I said. So as to say, rather than, okay, this reconnaissance did. We did a lot of training over there and it was done in the field. Well, when it came time for two weeks training, we were assigned a guard duty and we had guards around the chain link fence at our base. We was the guards at the place and then we practiced basketball. So that was a luck deal. So as to say, okay, now here comes the more good part. Then in the doctor's office, I'll call it. Right.
Speaker 2:Then the people that left took all the records and everything. There are people left, you know the 2nd Armored Division was coming to Fort Hood, texas, so they took all the records. Well, I really, you know, had never been into anything like that. The sergeant says right, there's a bookcase, it's got all the ARs in it, anything you don't know. All you got to do is pick it up. You're a college graduate, you figure it out.
Speaker 2:Well, and going through the ARs Army regulations, then I looked upon the ones that released you from service. They were right there, numbered, and how you qualified. I found one. It was AR-205. I don't remember the first three letters of it. They would release a person under national health, safety and interest. Well, I read that and saw that I qualified, except that my MOS was a medic, which was a critical MOS at that time. Clerical was not. So I began immediately with a surge. I said we need to get that change. Yeah, we'll get that change. Then we did it. After that I wrote my superintendent here and told him about the possibility and so forth and told him that if we could get a little political help, little political help, that it would be a plus. We applied and it went through so as to say and I remember the first that I heard about it was I got a letter from both Congress and the Senator on the same day and said that I will be released within two weeks to return to my former job.
Speaker 1:Now, how long were you in the Army?
Speaker 2:I was in the Army 13 months and 17 days and about half of that was spent in Germany. I did basic training, advanced basic. We had leave after the second training to Germany. We went, and it was a fine job with me.
Speaker 1:I floated to it so as to say yeah, Well, you know we thank you for your service and I always knew you were in the Army. I just never knew the story. So I really appreciate you sharing that.
Speaker 2:Well, after that I came back and started, you know back where I left off, and that second year that I was here I started the program here, almost like you start from new. I figured out what was going to be my weak points and tried to. You know, hit those real hard. So, as far as the team was concerned, one that I worried so much about it, and that my principal made it plain that she did not want to be called any nicknames, I was going to be called Mr, just like everybody else was.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Because Mr Williams that had coached here previously, he, they called him joe and she didn't like it. So I had told him this and you might remember this little speech that I made to you all. I made it to everyone, uh, in my classes I told him who I was. I told him what my name was. If you don't know, my nickname is cotton. I said administration requires that and that I have me called mister. I said now, when you get through school, you graduate. You see me on the street anywhere.
Speaker 1:I said I have no problems with you calling me caught and I never had any trouble with well, I, I, I'm not sure, of course, you were always coach jones to me or mr jones, because that's the way I grew up, but, uh, I never knew how you got that nickname. Are you willing to share that?
Speaker 2:okay, the nickname was is by her, was always just as white as a sheet of paper and my parents said, started calling me cotton before I went to school and, as a matter of fact, my wife calls me Cotton. I've always just called me Cotton and I doubt that a few of my neighbors even know my name now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I still have a hard time calling you that, so you're still Coach Jones or Mr Jones to me. But yeah, that's good. So you coached after you came back you coached high school basketball.
Speaker 2:See, I coached high school basketball two years before I went into service. That second year then I took the hard line at it. We may not have the talent, but we're going to outwork everybody. I started summer practice Saturday practice, sunday afternoon practice and that first year we won five ballgames and was probably lucky to win that because some of my older seniors and so forth they left. They didn't stay, and so that second year then we won 20 ball games and they hadn't seen that many wins in forever and so instead of being able to shoot birds if they were people in the bleachers, nobody came.
Speaker 2:My first half year I was here, so as to say and we started picking up and then that second year we started filling her up and really I don't know what happened or how, but my first game that I played mccurry, my first year here, we won it and then we had to be deaf in a long time, you know so it's the same yeah, exactly now.
Speaker 1:Did you coach? Uh, did you coach high school after you came back from the army?
Speaker 2:yes, yes, yes. I came back there and picked up the US Service. They won four ballgames. They slid right back that next year. I didn't start over, but it was going back, but we won 16 ballgames. We won 16 ballgames the next year. Then we won 25 ballgames and lost six. And then the next year we won 27 ballgames and lost seven and went to the regional tournament oh wow. Yeah, that was a big deal, so as to say we had 14 or 15 teams.
Speaker 2:You know from Russell County, wayne County. Oh wow, ray Mills, who was a varsity player at the University of Kentucky.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and now? When did you stop coaching high school basketball?
Speaker 2:After 1962, then.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Then I had gotten married and was trying to figure out, you know, financially. My wife was teaching and together we wasn't making much money. I was going to tell you that first year, for all those things that I sponsored, I got 2400 dollars. Okay, and my wife didn't get that much because she hadn't finished her degree wow so, you know, there was just not much to go out. Well, uh, I had started a family there.
Speaker 2:You know, robert was born in 61, I guess you probably you were two I was yes I had to sort of try to figure things out, and I figured out that that I could make more money by getting groceries at earl anderson's, that I could coach you, but I didn't do that. Then I started doing things that not necessarily working for other people, but working for myself that would benefit me While I was in service. Then they completed the front wing at the Pine Island Elementary School and moved to the first sixth grade. Out there they had 58, and so they went along there until the mid-60s and they didn't have a basketball team. We had a seventh and eighth grade team at our school but they didn't have one. And I looked at Robert and sort of tried to, you know, look down the road and the type kid he was and what he liked and so forth, and I thought, well, I can at least try to help my kids, so as to say, and then, be helping some other people absolutely
Speaker 2:and so I got with the elementary preschool, which was Denzel King, and he was great, he was all for it. Y'all were in the second grade then and I took the third grade also. To have enough, I took the ones that wanted to come out for basketball and didn't cut anyone If anyone wanted to quit. You know they quit. But I had a rule, like I did in high school, and I'll tell you about that maybe, if I can remember, in a second. And we started there.
Speaker 2:Okay, what I tried to do is to teach the fundamentals. You know how to dribble a ball without batting it like a paddle, but to shove it down, you know, and it'll come back up and so forth. And then, after a few sessions of that, then I divided the team, the boys, into two teams and Mr Merton Wilson, which was Merton Lynn Wilson's father, agreed to coach one team and I coached the other referee and we tried to start with there. And I can remember the first time that we went out there new experience for me that it was just like a bunch of hounds chasing a fox. Everybody was after the ball. You know, I didn't hardly know what to do, but we got through that day. And so for the next time that we did it, I put tape on the floor and said when your team gets the ball, you run right there and if you're guarding that man you go to, you go with him and you guard him down there. And that way it separated them a little while and we sort of got started.
Speaker 1:Hey, well, this has been fun, coach. I could talk to you probably all night. You've been around a bit. Is there anything you would tell people on how to live a good life? Besides, don't take a vacation. What would you tell some young person?
Speaker 2:well, not taking a vacation might be all right if you handle it mentally, and it didn't bother me mentally at all. Well, if I was talking to a younger person, I'd certainly tell them to uh, when you're going to school, get as much out of it as you can, get as much education as you can, so as to say and be sure that you take care of your body. That would be the big things that I would say, and certainly I would want you to be a person that your children were proud of.
Speaker 1:I know your kids are proud of you and probably everybody that had you in school has great memories of their time with you. Thank you for tuning in to Dan the Road Trip Guy. I hope you enjoyed our journey today and the stories that were shared. If you have any thoughts or questions or stories of your own, I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to reach out to me anytime. Don't forget to share this podcast with your friends and family and help us to spread the joy of road trips and great conversations. Until next time, keep driving, keep exploring and keep having those amazing conversations. Safe travels and remember you can find me on the internet at dantheroadtripguycom.
