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!
I hope you enjoy the episodes. You can find me at https://www.dannyneal.com.
Dan The Road Trip Guy
Four Decades of Teaching: Basketball, Character, and Small Town Values, Part 2
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Ever wonder what makes someone dedicate their entire life to teaching kids in a small Kentucky town? In this heartwarming continuation of my conversation with Mr. Howard Jones, we dive deeper into the life and wisdom of a man who shaped generations through four decades of teaching.
Coach Jones shares powerful stories that reveal his character-building approach to coaching basketball. When a player lost his uniform, Coach made him earn the money for a replacement by picking up trash around town. When his star player attempted to quit by tossing his uniform on the desk, Coach calmly explained: "When you quit, you're through." The player was back on the court before practice started. These weren't just sports lessons—they were life lessons that prepared young people for the challenges ahead.
The conversation takes us through Coach's resourceful approach to running school sports with zero budget, organizing games with neighboring towns, and finding creative ways to provide opportunities for his students. We learn about his personal passions too—from his meticulously maintained John Deere tractor to his lifelong love of gardening, which continues today with a carefully curated selection of vegetables he particularly enjoys.
Perhaps most striking is Coach Jones' extraordinary dedication. When asked if he ever took vacations, he simply replies: "Never took a vacation. I just always felt that when I came back I'd be so far behind I could never catch up." His self-reliance extended to learning how to fix almost anything by watching others do it once—a fading ethic in our modern world of specialists and service calls.
His closing advice captures the essence of a well-lived life: get as much education as possible, take care of your body, and be someone your children can be proud of. Join us for this moving conversation that celebrates not just a beloved coach, but the values that built small-town America.
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. Today's episode is a continuation of episode 78. And if you missed that one, I hope you'll go back and listen to part one of my conversation with Mr Howard Jones.
Speaker 1:Now, to most of us who grew up in a small Kentucky town of Pine Knot, we called him Coach Jones or Mr Jones. He was a teacher for four decades in the McQuarrie County school system. He was also my first basketball coach and one of my heroes. Today we'll continue our conversation. We'll talk a little bit more about basketball, his hometown first job, cars and I left in from part one Coach's advice on how to live a good life. I hope you enjoy the show, coach. Welcome back to the show. I'm excited to continue our conversation. Talk a little bit more about your life.
Speaker 2:Thank you, sir.
Speaker 1:Of course, when you started our basketball back when we were in the second third grade, you made sure we had uniforms, and I remember those uniforms. I don't remember the exact color of the first ones, but I do remember us getting some purple and white uniforms. Of course, the Pine Island High School colors were blue and gold and I think when we were in the sixth grade you outfitted us with some really sharp uniforms that mimicked those uniforms with blue and gold. I just thought we'd take a few minutes and talk about basketball uniforms.
Speaker 2:The only teams that we had. One of them been blue and white, but I think the supplier may have been out or made a mistake or something, so we had to get going.
Speaker 1:So I accepted those there and the purple didn't mean anything or the black didn't mean anything I remember when we were, uh, yeah, as we got a little bit older, we wore, uh, purple and white. Yeah, yeah, you, as we got a little bit older, we wore purple and white.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you remember when you got a?
Speaker 1:little bit older. Yeah, when I was we got a little bit older me and Robert, I remember I have a picture of us and we're wearing purple and white uniforms, these real shiny purple purple trunks, and I was always like, as I got older, got older, I was like I wonder why our uniforms were purple okay, now Betty has a picture in our living room, a heater.
Speaker 2:It's a heater there and then you build a fireplace in a fireplace and it has a little snapshot of Robert, but it's that same one probably, and it's been there for years. We gave out their uniforms. Everybody had a uniform, everybody took it home. There's always to say you had to have a uniform before you could practice or play.
Speaker 2:This might have been just a year or two past second third grade, but anyhow, a player came and lost his trunks. Well, it all took me. I said well, you know the road, you have to pay for the uniform and then I'll have to order it and you can't practice or play until then. It just about broke my heart with that kid as I went to school in the morning he was out in the rain and the snow picking up the cups and things at that little Dipsy Doodle and he'd come to school and he'd bring me a quarter and those things were about $2.50 I think, or something like that. But I held him to that and I don't know how he feels about that today, but I feel like that was really a lesson for him and that was little Roger Metis.
Speaker 1:Roger Dodger, yep.
Speaker 2:Dodger right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you know, that's what builds character.
Speaker 2:I think Maybe we need a little more of that today well now one other story I won't tell you, and I meant to get to it before. This is as I had made. I didn't make a whole lot of rules, but the rules that I made, do you know? There, that's the rule. We had played our first game, my first year at the high school coaching level, in 1955 fall, and the best prospect and the best player that I had came up to my office and I had given out. All we had was one uniform and they were gold, and they carried them in a paper bag to play on. Well, he came in the door and pitched it on my desk and I looked up and I said whoa, what's going on?
Speaker 2:He said, coach, I just want to come by and give you this uniform. He said I quit. And he was a junior. Yeah. And a big, strong boy.
Speaker 2:And you know what did I do? Swallowed my tongue, I guess. But anyhow, at the end he turned to leave and I said well, now wait just a minute before you leave. I said I want to have just a little bit of a discussion. So I told him. I said I want to have just a little bit of a discussion. So I told him. I said I'm a new coach this year.
Speaker 2:I have not made a list of rules and so forth, but one of my rules is is when you quit, you're through. As long as I'm coach, you're not allowed to come back for the team or the next year's team. You're through. And he looked at me so as to say it. He said the boys won't throw me the ball. Well, I said that's not for you to decide, that's for me to decide and we'll take care of that down the road. So as to say, but I wanted to be sure that you understood that when you quit, you quit. And I said now I was changing shoes. I said when I get these shoes changed and get down on the floor. If you're not on the floor with the rest of the kids, you report to the study hall and you are through. When I came downstairs, he was practicing.
Speaker 2:Changed his mind right Luck, and I meant that too.
Speaker 1:Yep, hey, here's one for you that I remember when we were—we might have been in elementary school, but we were wearing the blue and gold uniforms by then. You would take us out of class in the afternoon sometimes, not often and we would travel. We'd get in cars and we would travel to places like Capitol Hill, tennessee and Winfield and places Williamsburg, and I just always remember you not only playing the local teams, but we would go places.
Speaker 2:I remember very well doing those things. The root of that was we didn't have any money. Money was a problem. When I took the job as high school coach, the principal was Mrs Harmon, and she was great. She was a great principal, but she was not an athletic principal. She did not understand all of athletics, she was more into music and this sort of thing. But anyhow though, she told me. She said you have zero account. She said you're responsible for that account, and if it's in the red, I said I'll take it out of your salary. You've got to make it come out of the black. Well, people was coming to the games. Where was I going to get money? Well, we survived somehow or another. And at the elementary school then, he didn't have any appropriation.
Speaker 2:So we raised our money and you probably remember the boys carrying Coca-Cola over to the girls, selling concessions there, so as to say, and that was what we did. Well, some of these schools, you know, they started asking where are you getting any uniforms? You know they didn't have what we did. Well, some of these schools, you know, they started asking around where are you getting every uniform? You know they didn't have what we had, and there was basketballs and this and that, and I just told them we raised the money. So a lot of it came as those coaches wanted us to come and play a game in front of their school and their principal would allow their kids to pass all about and come to the games. That was the root of the whole thing.
Speaker 1:I see.
Speaker 2:You mentioned Winfield. I remember the two things I remember very well. You scored 24 points at Winfield. I remember that very well. And you was not a scorer, you was a defensive whiz. You usually got the best player on the guard that was halfway your size. Well, the time zone was the state line. Right that afternoon we were all set to go. We were still in play and I got a telephone call and and it was Coach Delner and he said are you coming? He said my kids are in the gym. He said we've been warming up I don't know how long. So I was just saying you didn't show and I said it's not time yet. He said it is time and we had different time zones of an hour. See.
Speaker 2:I gathered up six boys and to Winfield we went in my car and you all dressed your uniforms while we were going to Winfield, helping each other dress and so forth. Yeah in the car. Did you remember doing? That In the car. Can you remember doing that In the car? Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we came in and ran a few laps and dribbled in the balls and said, let's play ball. And so, to answer your question, I was probably helping them raise some money or maybe returning to where they'd ever done, and we'd get to play one or two games a year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was fun. That was a lot of fun for us.
Speaker 2:Well, what I tried to do, and kids that young, I thought we've got to make them enjoy it. We've got to have a good time doing this or they won't be interested in it, and so that was one of my objectives. And as far as rules, I never did do a sheet of rules and say here are the rules for you all. I remember that I had a parent that waited until after practice for me at the front doors over there and you all had dressed and left. It was a lady. It was a lady and she says Coach, I'd like to see a list of your rooms. I said what's the problem here? I said what's going on? She said they're waiting on my boy down here on this fire dock and they're whipping up on him every day. Well, that was completely off the school grounds and everything. And I said Well, it's sort of your responsibility when he leaves the school ground here and I can't go home with 20 boys. Right.
Speaker 2:And she said you don't have a list of rules. I said I have one rule Everybody acts like a child. And really with all the effort that I was putting in, that really hit me hard, with all the effort that I was putting in that really hit me hard.
Speaker 1:Hey, you mentioned early on growing up your parents had a garden and you had a garden and your garden got bigger and bigger, I think every year. Did you enjoy gardening and do you still garden?
Speaker 2:Yes, I did very, very much and I didn't do a lot of gardening at home. One thing that I'd have missed and I guess that I'm talking is when I was in the fifth or sixth grade I started working for the grocery man that was in our neighborhood. Grocery man that was in our neighborhood and it was an operation similar to what your Uncle Earl had over there, except that he didn't have the straw and the fertilizer and all that stuff, he just had the canned stuff. So I started working for him and worked for him for several years. I'd worked for him for several years, but what helped me so much is he didn't. He wasn't getting very much ahead in the groceries. He eliminated the groceries and went into hardware, and the same thing happened and he went into used furniture and then into antiques. Well, I stayed with him all those times.
Speaker 2:He was a teacher in the school system there and his wife ran the businesses. He was really an intelligent person and he sort of took me under his wing in an awful lot of things and advised me on this and that and so on and so forth, and I made a little money which the other kids didn't have at that time. So I was to say I probably made and this is only a guess 25 or 30 cents an hour, working two hours of the evening and working on Saturday. And as it came to antiques, I sort of learned the value of antiques and what was antiques and you also learned the value of antiques and what had, what was antiques and what was it, and learned how to uh strip paint from and varnish from furniture and, as a matter of fact, the owner and I learned that together.
Speaker 1:He didn't know either yeah, so are you still, uh, are you still gardening today? Uh, yes, I am yeah on a very small scale yeah now, when betty and I retired in 1995 not to be confused with almost 30 years ago.
Speaker 2:Coach yeah, it is, it's about 28 or a little more. Yeah, she said. Cotton said let's still not do all this raising food that we've been doing. She had been pretty much preserving the food all those years and while I was, you know, bringing it in the door, throwing it in the house I guess it was to say so I said to her. I said that'll be fine, You've done well. I said I'm going to cut the garden back, but I'm going to raise the things that I like now and that's all I'm going to do. So I ended up raising sweet pepper, cucumbers, tomatoes and watermelons, and she loves squash and I raise squash. Those things are the stuff I've raised for the last few years.
Speaker 1:Okay, now one question on the garden. I think you had the first John Deere call it lawnmower slash tractor I ever saw in my life. Do you still have a John Deere today?
Speaker 2:I still have that, John Deere what happened on, that is, I have bought a snowblade, I bought a tiller and then I bought the uh mower for the the yard.
Speaker 2:Well, I wore it out yeah sure anyway, it had cast iron parts in there where we could rebuild it. And a guy retired at John Deere and it happened that he came up to work on another lawnmower and he saw it and he wanted to know what I was going to do with it. He wanted to buy it and so I said, no, I'm going to keep it. And he said, well, let me rebuild it for you. And he had done their work down there for 25 years industrial something in O'Neill and he rebuilt it and it's perfect if it's not rusted up or something.
Speaker 2:It's in my garage and I bought other John Deere's. As a matter of fact, I have one I bought it in about 92 now that I use and I also have another one I mow. I mow probably an acre and three-fourths would be real close to what I mow here. I enjoy mowing.
Speaker 1:Well, that's good, hang on to that, and you can pass it on to grandkids.
Speaker 2:And I noticed, sir, in your notes that you had mentioned Battle Ball. I don't think the state specifies what you play so as to say they're interested in physical fitness and this sort of thing. Yeah. And in the physical education classes. This was my approach.
Speaker 2:And you might laugh, I don't know. On the first day of the class I always, you know, in my speech I always told them I said we're going to do calisthenics and we're going to do a few laps around the gym and then we're going to have some fun, we're going to play a game. I said on the calisthenics I said if somebody's messing up and not doing it, I'll just say do it over. Well, when I say do it over, the kids would take care of that. They would let the other person know hey, hey, you get with it now. You know, I had real good success with that and I had. We did some.
Speaker 1:I'm over too yep, we did and uh, yeah, I just uh, I remember battle ball and I was like they probably don't play that today. It probably would seem like a dangerous game today, but boy, that was a fun game.
Speaker 2:Well, and it's according to what kind of ball that you use. I know that I had some younger class of girls at PE and I used what I think was called nerve balls. They were a little wide ball and if they hit you you know, it didn't bother you yeah. But now the older boys throwing these inflated like an inner tube rubber balls that could burn a blister, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that could sting if you got hit. I never liked the trampoline. You'd pull out the trampoline. I just never was fond of jumping on the trampoline.
Speaker 2:I never had any training in trampolines, so as to say, and I just looked at films and you know I had manuals and so forth. A lot of the kids did like it. Some of them didn't. The thing about the trampoline is some of them would want to do things before they were ready to do them. Right. I remember Charles Woods was in on, I don't know, some type of break or something from Tennessee Tech. He came in the door and he hadn't seen the trampoline. I don't think before.
Speaker 2:He hadn't seen ours I don't know if he'd ever seen one or not and this was an after-hours thing that we had people jumping and you know, they were jumping into their seat and knees and whatever. And Charles came over there and he said would you let me jump? Came over and there and he said would you let me jump? And I questioned him and he sort of made me believe that he had a little experience on it and I said well, if you'll just get up there and jump up and down, we'll try it. Well, he got up there and before I knew it he turned a somersault. There was a girl that was spotting at the end of the trampoline. She saw him coming and she went under the trampoline and he landed on the mat there like a cat on all fours.
Speaker 1:You mentioned Mrs Jones Betty. How did you all meet?
Speaker 2:Betty was a teacher here in the county when I came.
Speaker 1:Okay, did you play sports growing up? Then Did you play basketball.
Speaker 2:I tried to, so as to say I was not a real good player, so as to say. But at the same time this brings up another story At the same time I had speed. I was quicker and faster than most of the kids he had, and the coach that we had was interested in football. We had real, real good football. We were in the Cumberland Valley Conference and that was from the Harlan County, bell County, knox County, whitley County, those counties up down that river, and I remember my senior year. They divided the schools into the big schools and the little schools. Most of the time you just took your chances. You know, you're just a member, you're part of it. Well, we went undefeated in football and we were in the.
Speaker 2:A division and we had a playoff with the big schools that was in the B division and we had a playoff with the big schools that was in the B Division. So we had that playoff at Pineville on Thanksgiving Day and I never will forget. It snowed that night. It snowed through the windows of a lot of our players. It was nice. But what I wanted to tell you though, my senior year we beat Corbin.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And Corbin was the big dog. Always over there we beat Corbin by two touchdowns. That Corbin. Now our coach had a rule that if you didn't play football you can't play basketball. So I was small when I graduated. I weighed about 110 pounds. I got killed out on that football field and the coach lived about 400 or 500 yards from where I lived. I knew him as a neighborhood man and he was looking for a manager. The manager had graduated a year before and I went to him and told him I said, if you'll let me try for basketball, I'll make you the best manager you've ever had. So I was football manager there a long time and the football manager had it all to do too. We had two or three helpers, but I'm talking about the head man. We had to line the field. If the Friday game was at home, we had to put down the lines, and they were put down by hand with live.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2:And then we had a whole warship machine with a rigger on it and we kept the practice stuff and the jerseys clean. We had a lot of work that we had to do. We had to stay after school a lot of times to complete that. So I competed, you know, in practice, so as to say, and in situations he might feel sorry for me and put me in a little bit, so as to say, but I didn't play a whole lot, but I enjoyed it just about as much as if I was the star of the team. Yeah, and I learned quite a bit.
Speaker 2:Well, when I went to coveland my brother was two years behind me and and they didn't figure they could send both of us to school. So I was gonna go two, go two years, and if you took the elementary courses you could get a teacher's certificate after two years. I did that at Cumberland and got that certificate. Well, he went to Cumberland and he didn't like it. He decided he was just going to give him a job at General Electric in Louisville, which he did, and so I went on to Eastern then at that time and I had coached their basketball under Paul McBrayer. Paul McBrayer was an assistant coach at UK. When the war started. They took him in because he was an officer in the service and Rob Harden, harry L langster then as an assistant coach. Well, when he, when he came back by grayer then rubble to keep the one, keep, uh, langster. So he went to eastern and got that job and so I had coaching a basketball under him and he was tremendous, he.
Speaker 1:He tried to teach us how to coach the game instead of just blow food you're a great teacher and well, there's a story that just popped in my mind and I have no idea if you'll remember it. We were in high school I think I was probably a junior. It was our last year at pine knot and if you remember that gymnasium, there wasn't much space between the line and the wall and the wall was pretty hard and I hit my head on the wall once and I was bleeding quite a bit. You knew my mother would probably freak out if I went home. I remember I had a white shirt on and there's blood all over it and you checked me out and you determined I was okay. But you took me home and you stood in front of me while you told my mother that I was fine but I had cracked my head on the wall. But I think that's just who you were. You were, you took really.
Speaker 2:you not only coached us and taught us, but you took care of us well a story I want to tell you that I do remember happened and and it was in middle school, after we became a middle school, we were on the softball field and we were changing sides. You know, three outs change sides. Well, I was standing somewhere between the home plate and first base on that line there, and they were changing sides. And we were changing sides. Well, a few of the kids had gloves and I had three or four old gloves and we were getting about ready to let the next batter back and someone in the field decided that the catcher needed a glove. Well, the batter had already taken his place at the batter's box and he was taking his air swings. I'll call them, you know he's swinging that.
Speaker 2:And this catcher and he stepped into that bat and that bat hit him right on the top of the head and knocked him down. I mean it put him on the ground that guy was hitting the home runs and I ran over there real quickly. The only thing I had was my hands and my handkerchief. When I looked at his head, I saw his skull. It just laid the skin back.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I put that handkerchief on there and held it and sent someone to get the principal to call an ambulance and everything worked out fine. He was fine. They took him away, but you know, but that was fine, that stopped all the bleeding and everything. That was among the worst injuries that I had in PE.
Speaker 1:Hey, what was your first car you ever owned?
Speaker 2:The first car I ever owned was a 1951 Plymouth that the guy that I worked for went north on a buying trip. And he said, we'll just find you a car up there in cincinnati. And we bought it and I kept it about a year and traded it and got a 1956 forward and got drafted into service and I didn't make enough money with service to make the payment.
Speaker 1:So I had to sell it now. Now, growing up, you seemed to be a Ford guy, best I remember. Is that right?
Speaker 2:Well, most of my cars were Fords. I had an LTD.
Speaker 1:Yes, and.
Speaker 2:I had a 67 Chevrolet that I bought from Alfred Kidd over there.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But not necessarily. It just happened to work out that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't remember that one.
Speaker 2:I didn't keep it very long, I don't remember why, or maybe a year or so forth.
Speaker 1:Hey, here's a question for you, and I've just enjoyed our conversation. Here's a question for you. You might have to think about this one for a minute, and I love to ask people this If you could jump in the car with somebody living or deceased, who do you think that'd be?
Speaker 2:You know, I saw that with the list of things that we might talk about or something. Really, I don't have an answer for that.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I don't have and I was taught and it had to be this way, okay. Yeah, I was going to ask you if you'd ever been on vacation. Never took a vacation, Never took a vacation. I just always felt that when I came back that I was so far behind that I could never catch up. You know, with the garden and the yard and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I was a person that did my own work, and I was a person that did my own work my dad. He was so busy he didn't take time enough to teach me how to do many things. In other words, what I learned, I learned by watching. Now I got my own house. If I had a problem and I had to call somebody, I watched them. If the problem reoccurred later, I tried to fix it, whether I did or could do it or not right that's the way I've always been today we seem to just call everybody, call somebody for everything.
Speaker 1:Uh, hey, well, this has been fun, coach, I could talk to you. 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 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. Well, thank you, coach, this has been fun. It's a real fun with me, so as to say Okay, Well you have a good one, you as well, and I'll talk to you again. Bye-bye.
Speaker 1:Bye now. 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.
