scallahorn
100+ Posts
In our prayers and in our hearts.
Lam Jones very ill
- Thread starter Punt on 1st Down
- Start date
jblonghorn
25+ Posts
God bless you Jonny. Our hearts and prayers are with you and your family.
S
smwhorn
Guest
Ham, Lam and Jam Jones. Prayers to Lam Jones family.
My memory of Johnny Lam Jones was in the 8th grade and our Llano team was undefeated the whole year with Boyd Gray as our big guy. We went to Lampassas to play them because they too were undefeated. Even back then he would just take the pitch from the QB and run for the sideline and then up the sideline with no one able to get close to him. Incredible speed. May the Lord bless you and keep you, may He make His face shine upon you, Johnny.
longhornbell
100+ Posts
God Bless, Johnny. Keeping prayers and good thoughts for you. Thank you for the memories and excitement you created with the 'Horns.
llanoflash
25+ Posts
'I see him beating the odds': Longtime friend believes Olympic gold medalist Johnny Jones can win battle against rare form of cancer
By JIM LOWE (www.lampasasdispatchrecord.com)
Staff Writer - When Mary Jones Dillon's only son, Johnny, was an elementary school student who liked football and track, she knew he possessed remarkable athletic ability.
"All his little friends used to say, `Johnny's going to play in the pros,'" she remembers.
But there was just one problem: his size.
"Johnny, you can't play football," his mother told him one day. "You're too small."
"Momma, but I'm fast," her son protested.
Unable to disagree with him on that point, she gave in. "OK," she said.
One can rest assured that Johnny's high school, college and Olympic track coaches are only too glad the son, not his mother, prevailed.
Johnny Jones would go on to become one of the fastest sprinters and football players in the world. After a brilliant career at Lampasas High School, he later became a gold medalist in the 1976 Montreal Olympics, an All-Southwest Conference football star at the University of Texas and a top pro draft pick for the New York Jets.
His greatest struggles in life, however, have not been on the athletic playing field, but off it.
For the past several weeks, Jones has been hospitalized at Austin's Brackenridge Hospital. There, he is in a race against time, as he battles multiple myeloma, a rare form of cancer that has attacked his blood and 90 percent of his bone marrow.
Last Wednesday, before daybreak, he was transferred to the hospital's intensive care unit. A sign on his door noted that only family members are permitted to see him.
But Jones has many friends and relatives pulling for him, and that ICU sign is largely ignored.
***
It's the following day, after the former Lampasas Badger star has been moved to ICU. The waiting room down the hospital corridor is full of people who have come to visit with the man who once clocked 9.1 seconds in the 100-yard dash.
His mother has gone to the cafeteria to get a bite to eat, a friend explains.
Over the past several weeks, Jones' other well-wishers have included his two sisters, Ammie Antoine-Bush of Killeen and Sandra Wilson, a Lampasas County resident. Jason Moreno, Jones' 30-year-old son, has fielded questions from the media, but he is not present now. Jones' daughter, Sonyett Bailey of McKinney -- like Moreno -- has been at the hospital a lot, but she is away today.
A former teammate of Jones at UT, Johnny "Ham" Jones, visits animatedly with someone across the room. Nearby, Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton -- a former quarterback at Killeen High School -- talks on a cell phone. High school teammate and longtime friend Randy Hairston also waits his turn to say a few words to Johnny.
In a lobby across the entrance to Brackenridge, Jones' mother later talks with a reporter. She is tired, having made the daily drive from Killeen to Austin. She is heartened by the good day Johnny has had. She will stay at home on Friday, she says, to catch up on some rest.
Two younger women -- one a cousin of Johnny's, the other a good friend -- step into the lobby to visit with Jones' mother. It is clear, they say, that Johnny does better when he is surrounded by friends and family, not isolated -- as the sign on his ICU room would have him to be. Johnny's mother readily agrees.
"Johnny is a people person," she says softly. "He loves people; he loves his friends."
In high school, when Jones caught the eye of the University of Oklahoma's Barry Switzer and Texas' legendary coach Darrell Royal, he was staying in Lampasas with his grandparents, the late Rev. Arthur and Mary Anderson.
At the time, his mother was in Lawton, Okla. There she served as the first black female deputy sheriff in the state of Oklahoma, a post she held for seven years. She also worked for a state district judge for eight years.
In October 1990, she took early retirement and returned to Texas.
***
Different friends and family members want Johnny to go to Houston's M.D. Anderson cancer facility, where he can receive specialized treatment. Mrs. Jones Dillon has her opinions, too, but she refuses to be drawn into the fray. The decision, she says, is her son's to make.
She turns to a less controversial topic: what life with Johnny was like when he was just a kid. The neighborhood children gravitated to his house, his mother explains. Besides football, Johnny liked to play marbles. A young girl did, as well, and some of the guys-only crowd were none too pleased by the prospect of co-educational marbles competition. They wanted to exclude the young female friend.
"Oh, let her play," Johnny said. His friends relented, if reluctantly.
Jones also enjoyed basketball. There was a goal in his back yard, but because of the many games played at the site, there was no grass. His mom did not mind, she said, because people are more important than a yard full of grass.
While Johnny clearly had a love of sports, Mrs. Jones Dillon says her daughter, Sandra, enjoyed gymnastics and basketball. Her other daughter, Ammie, liked books and writing and creative things. When Johnny and his Lampasas Badger teammates won the state track championship -- largely on the strength of Johnny's anchor leg in the mile relay event when he came from about 40 meters behind to win -- Ammie wrote a poem about the event. She also copyrighted it. "It's real good," says Mrs. Jones Dillon.
Now, almost 30 years later, Johnny's mother is simply trying to be available to her son as he battles for his life against cancer.
"We have trials in life," Mrs. Jones Dillon acknowledges. "You just take the bitter with the sweet. We don't know what His reason is for. It's not that God thinks you're good, or He thinks you're bad. It's just one of the trials you have."
She relates how her son told her: "You've got to pray, but you have to get up on the rooftop, because this is a big one. You're going to have to get up high to reach Him (for an answer)."
A project she is working on is compiling yet another scrapbook of her son's athletic exploits. A friend, the late Zula Tipton, "saved every clipping in every paper, I guess, that came out about Johnny."
***
Randy Hairston, like Jones, was a member of the Lampasas High School Class of 1976. His association with Jones goes all the way back to their youth baseball days. "Mrs. Anderson used to cook us fried chicken after our Little League games," says Hairston.
Just how good were those home-cooked meals?
"Oh, man!" exclaims Hairston.
An offensive tackle and a linebacker for the Badger varsity football team, Hairston remembers how then Oklahoma University coach Barry Switzer attended several of Lampasas' football games during Jones' senior year.
Texas' coach at the time, Darrell Royal, came to several practices and visited the team's locker room during Jones' last two years on the local campus, Hairston said.
Coaches from across the nation started paying attention to Jones as early as his sophomore year in high school, however.
"Johnny at times was leaning toward going to OU, but Coach Royal put on a rush at the last," recalls Hairston, who accompanied the Lampasas runningback on a recruiting visit to the University of Texas. "Everybody in Austin treated Johnny like he was the man," Hairston remembers.
Now an assistant manager for a Home Depot store in Austin, Hairston lives in nearby Bastrop. "Johnny is as good as gold," he declares. "He has some fantastic qualities."
For one thing, Hairston says, "He was always respectful of your parents when you brought him to the house. It was always: `Yes, sir,' and `Yes, ma'am.'"
Despite the fame Jones achieved, "He was never one to be in the limelight," Hairston said. "He hated it."
After the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, when Jones won a gold medal as a member of the United States' 400-meter relay team, sportswriters converged on Lampasas when Jones made a celebrated return to his hometown. Thousands of residents met him at the local airport, and Royal, who would coach Jones that next fall in the UT coach's final football season with the Longhorns, was present for the occasion.
When Jones and his friends met at a fellow athlete's residence, the sports reporters showed up.
Jones "didn't want to go outside and talk to the reporters," Hairston reminisces. "He wanted the rest of us to talk with them."
Though the Lampasas speedster drew crowds seemingly wherever he went, his idea of a good time in high school was to play pool or go fishing, Hairston said. "He wasn't into the fast pace. He liked to be out in the country with his friends, away from a lot of people."
When he entered college, though, "he had a lot of people wanting to be his friends for the wrong reasons. That was the start of his problems."
***
Like Hairston, another person in the Brackenridge waiting room who wanted to drop in on Jones was a former UT teammate, Johnny "Ham" Jones.
To help sort out the Joneses, Royal nicknamed Johnny Jones of Lampasas "Johnny Lam." Johnny Jones of Hamlin, Texas, was dubbed "Ham." When Anthony Jones arrived on campus in 1978, he became known as "Jam."
Jam wore the No. 24 burnt orange jersey, while Ham had No. 25. Johnny Lam wore No. 26.
"You couldn't find a better person than Johnny," Ham Jones said of his peer from Lampasas. Johnny "Ham," like Johnny Lam, lives in the Austin area. Ham coached at Austin McCallum High School for 12 years. He now teaches physical education at Lamar Middle School, and he also teaches driver's education for older students in the city.
Ham recounts how not long ago Johnny Lam told him: "We really need to get together, because we don't know when our health is going to go bad."
Lam Jones, his former teammate from Hamlin says, "doesn't worry about himself. He's concerned about other people."
An attractive woman standing next to Ham Jones interjects: "Johnny's had a lot of money, and a lot of people took advantage of him." Part of the problem was that the former New York Jets player did not invest his money the way he should have.
Though he could be bitter about his experiences, "He doesn't hold anything against anybody," she said.
But Ham recalls a conversation he had with Jones, who said, "I had a lot of friends when I had a lot of money, but now that I don't have any, I don't see that many (people) around."
***
It's 6 p.m., and several friends of Johnny Jones are congregated in the hallway around the corner from the ICU room in which he is staying.
Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton is to be in San Marcos in about an hour to speak at an awards banquet for his department. But he is not leaving the hospital yet. "I've got to speak to Johnny," the former Killeen High School quarterback says.
After Hamilton's high school career, he played at Southwest Texas State University for Coach Jim Wacker. Hamilton's mother and Johnny Jones' mother are best friends, he explains.
While everyone seems to remember Jones' incredible come-from-behind race in the Class AAA state track meet that catapulted the Lampasan into legendary status, Hamilton says he saw Jones top that feat at another meet.
The Travis County law enforcement official remembers how Jones was 300 yards behind the leader when he took the baton on the anchor leg of the mile relay event. "He came and got them," he recalls. In another incredible finish, he beat the previous leader in the race by a head.
"Every time I think of that I say, ‘My goodness,'" Hamilton said.
Of Jones, the former Killeen Kangaroo football star said, "He was phenomenal."
***
One of the most enduring friendships Jones has had is the one with former Lampasas Badger teammate Garry Milligan, now in his seventh year as an assistant football coach for Austin Lanier High School. Milligan, who played collegiate football at Texas A&M University, also coaches the boys' varsity soccer team at Lanier, and he teaches health and physical education.
"We've been best friends, and we remain best friends through the good times and the bad," says Milligan, as he keeps a watchful eye on his players during a practice session.
The first hint he had that all was not well with Jones came when Johnny injured his back in April. "The doctor said give it 90 days," Milligan recalls.
Every time Milligan would see Jones, "I'd plead with him to go to the doctor." But, having experienced lower-back pain himself, Milligan knew how slow to heal such injuries could be. Lower-back surgery does not have a high percentage of success either, he said.
For years, the two men have been fishing buddies.
The docks at Fayette County Lake near La Grange were a favorite fishing spot. There, the catfish and bass fishing was excellent. But there were other factors that made the times memorable, as well.
"We'd just sit and eat and talk and tell stories," says Milligan. "We'd sit on the dock till midnight." And even on those days when the two might fish all day and catch only one fish, Jones could not seem to get enough of the time. "He'd still want to stay," says Milligan.
Sometimes the conversation got so engrossing that when the two men did hook a fish, they were distracted long enough for their poles to be yanked off the dock and into the lake.
Though Jones may have held the edge in overall athletic ability during the years the two have known each other, Milligan enjoyed the upper hand at fishing. But elements of a friendly rivalry between the two sportsmen have long been evident.
"Every once in a while, he'd beat me and have bragging rights for awhile," concedes Milligan about Jones' fishing ability.
Says Milligan: "We compete on every single thing." That goes for pool, as well as fishing. Once, after the two had played almost 20 games of pool, the telephone rang. Jones was late for another commitment. "When are you going to take me to dinner?" his girlfriend asked him.
Jones hung up the phone. "Just one more game, Garry," he begged.
It's times like that Milligan remembers -- as well as the shared high school football experiences Jones and Milligan had in Lampasas.
What made the time special?
"Just playing together on the same team, being in the same huddle, just going through it together," answers the Austin Lanier offensive and defensive line coach.
Milligan played middle linebacker on defense and tackle on offense. He was a two-way starter from his sophomore through his senior year at LHS. Though it was the Badger line's responsibility to blow wide holes through an opponent's defensive line so Jones could scamper downfield, the swift runner was resourceful. Translated, that means he could slip through some small openings in the line, Milligan said. "He made us look like great blockers in those days," he admits.
Quarterback Lee Bridges -- who would go on to become a highly regarded high school football coach in Texas -- was good, but Jones' speed and good hands as a receiver did not hurt anything, either. "He would make Lee look like a passing quarterback," said Milligan, with a touch of admiration in his voice.
As good as Jones was, he still took some hard hits on the gridiron. Milligan recalls one such instance with amusement.
During one game, the Lampasas speedster scored three or four touchdowns. In the process, though, he suffered a concussion. After the game, Milligan and Jones were driving around a popular youth hangout, Storm's Drive-In restaurant.
"Garry, did we play a game tonight?" Jones asked his friend.
Remembers Milligan: "I said, ‘What are you talking about?'"
***
Good friends of Jones', such as Milligan and Lampasan David Gonzales -- the latter who roomed with Jones for a year in New York and worked for a friend of the Jets receiver -- have spent several nights with the Olympic gold medalist at Brackenridge.
"He'd be in so much pain, and it would ease at maybe 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning,"Milligan says. "We would talk about how much fishing we were going to do, because we were supposed to grow old together."
It has been noted by different sportswriters -- and by Jones himself -- that problems with drugs and alcohol cut his professional football career short. In recent years, though, Johnny was credited with having turned his life around. He began a program called "Locker Room." Schools invited Jones to be an honorary member of their football teams for an afternoon. He was paid $1,500 per appearance, $500 of which he donated to Special Olympics. He would share some of the highlights of his athletic days, but also point to how drugs wreaked havoc on what should have been an outstanding professional career. He also talked about brushes with the law and spending time in jail.
An account published earlier this year in The Dallas Morning News said that Jones "often reminds himself of the pain he has caused others. His friends and family marvel at the punishment he inflicts on himself with his guilty conscience.
"It's not important that I forgive myself," Jones said. "What's important is the way I live my life now."
Milligan remembers vividly the day Jones came to him after he moved out of Dallas. Jones showed up at Milligan's house in Austin and said, "Garry, I need a place to stay." Milligan was happy to open his home to an old friend, but he did so with some clear understandings.
"I said, `I have zero tolerance for drugs or alcohol.'" Jones assured his longtime friend that there would be no problems. Milligan went the extra mile in other ways, though, too, attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings with Jones.
"Rich, poor, black, white, alcohol abuse has no discrimination," Milligan says.
Jones told Milligan he would check into a drug rehabilitation center on Austin's east side, and he followed through on that commitment. Jones spent two years with Milligan, as he got back on his feet. He later worked for his former Lampasas High School coach, the late Scott Boyd, at an automobile dealership in the Fort Worth area. Jones then worked with a company that installed all-weather tracks and artificial turf at high school campuses.
Milligan notes with pride that Johnny Lam has been sober for 15 years now.
***
It is no exaggeration to say that Johnny Jones is in the battle of his life, as he seeks to beat cancer -- an opponent that knows no level playing field.
Still, Milligan sees more than a few rays of hope.
"He's always been a competitor," he says of the former UT football and track star. ""He's not going to give up. We talk about life and death, and I say, `We have too much life in front of us. We have too many things to do.'
"I see him beating the odds. It's bad, and he knows it." But, says Milligan: "If anybody can do it, it's him. I always tell him he's like a cat with nine lives."
Milligan believes it is essential to have a positive frame of mind in such difficult circumstances. "I don't ever let him see me down. It's a heartbreaker."
The interview draws to a close. Milligan has to take the field again to watch his players as they work on their kicking game.
"I'd like for everyone to pray for him," he says of Johnny Lam. "Any prayer will do. It's in God's hands."
***
Mary Jones Dillon says her son "is just a person who loves people. He doesn't care what color or kind." One person who is rooting for Jones is Lance Armstrong, the internationally acclaimed bicyclist who has won the Tour de France an unprecedented seven straight times.
Armstrong, who won his own battle with cancer, called a friend of Johnny's mother who works at the University of Texas. Armstrong offered his assistance if Jones wanted to go to a hospital in Little Rock, Ark., which could offer specialized care for the kind of cancer Jones has.
Said Jones' mother with gratitude: "You don't know how it makes you feel to know how much someone cares about your child."
Last Friday, Johnny Jones was moved out of ICU to a hospital patient room. As of Sunday, his condition had stabilized, and the pain had moderated, through medication, according to Jones' longtime friend Garry Milligan.
Jones reportedly was weighing his medical options, including being transferred to Houston's M.D. Anderson Cancer Center; the facility in Arkansas mentioned by Lance Armstrong; or remaining in the Austin area, where he could receive treatment at Brackenridge on an outpatient basis.
People who would like to contribute to a special fund set up to help defray his medical expenses can do so by contacting Cathy Walker at the Lampasas High School athletic office at 512-556-2327. They also can do so in person. In addition, dropoff points have been set up at First Texas Bank (contact person: Diana Jackson) or The National Banks of Central Texas (contact person: Sally Yancy). Checks should be payable to Johnny Lam Jones Medical Fund.
By JIM LOWE (www.lampasasdispatchrecord.com)
Staff Writer - When Mary Jones Dillon's only son, Johnny, was an elementary school student who liked football and track, she knew he possessed remarkable athletic ability.
"All his little friends used to say, `Johnny's going to play in the pros,'" she remembers.
But there was just one problem: his size.
"Johnny, you can't play football," his mother told him one day. "You're too small."
"Momma, but I'm fast," her son protested.
Unable to disagree with him on that point, she gave in. "OK," she said.
One can rest assured that Johnny's high school, college and Olympic track coaches are only too glad the son, not his mother, prevailed.
Johnny Jones would go on to become one of the fastest sprinters and football players in the world. After a brilliant career at Lampasas High School, he later became a gold medalist in the 1976 Montreal Olympics, an All-Southwest Conference football star at the University of Texas and a top pro draft pick for the New York Jets.
His greatest struggles in life, however, have not been on the athletic playing field, but off it.
For the past several weeks, Jones has been hospitalized at Austin's Brackenridge Hospital. There, he is in a race against time, as he battles multiple myeloma, a rare form of cancer that has attacked his blood and 90 percent of his bone marrow.
Last Wednesday, before daybreak, he was transferred to the hospital's intensive care unit. A sign on his door noted that only family members are permitted to see him.
But Jones has many friends and relatives pulling for him, and that ICU sign is largely ignored.
***
It's the following day, after the former Lampasas Badger star has been moved to ICU. The waiting room down the hospital corridor is full of people who have come to visit with the man who once clocked 9.1 seconds in the 100-yard dash.
His mother has gone to the cafeteria to get a bite to eat, a friend explains.
Over the past several weeks, Jones' other well-wishers have included his two sisters, Ammie Antoine-Bush of Killeen and Sandra Wilson, a Lampasas County resident. Jason Moreno, Jones' 30-year-old son, has fielded questions from the media, but he is not present now. Jones' daughter, Sonyett Bailey of McKinney -- like Moreno -- has been at the hospital a lot, but she is away today.
A former teammate of Jones at UT, Johnny "Ham" Jones, visits animatedly with someone across the room. Nearby, Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton -- a former quarterback at Killeen High School -- talks on a cell phone. High school teammate and longtime friend Randy Hairston also waits his turn to say a few words to Johnny.
In a lobby across the entrance to Brackenridge, Jones' mother later talks with a reporter. She is tired, having made the daily drive from Killeen to Austin. She is heartened by the good day Johnny has had. She will stay at home on Friday, she says, to catch up on some rest.
Two younger women -- one a cousin of Johnny's, the other a good friend -- step into the lobby to visit with Jones' mother. It is clear, they say, that Johnny does better when he is surrounded by friends and family, not isolated -- as the sign on his ICU room would have him to be. Johnny's mother readily agrees.
"Johnny is a people person," she says softly. "He loves people; he loves his friends."
In high school, when Jones caught the eye of the University of Oklahoma's Barry Switzer and Texas' legendary coach Darrell Royal, he was staying in Lampasas with his grandparents, the late Rev. Arthur and Mary Anderson.
At the time, his mother was in Lawton, Okla. There she served as the first black female deputy sheriff in the state of Oklahoma, a post she held for seven years. She also worked for a state district judge for eight years.
In October 1990, she took early retirement and returned to Texas.
***
Different friends and family members want Johnny to go to Houston's M.D. Anderson cancer facility, where he can receive specialized treatment. Mrs. Jones Dillon has her opinions, too, but she refuses to be drawn into the fray. The decision, she says, is her son's to make.
She turns to a less controversial topic: what life with Johnny was like when he was just a kid. The neighborhood children gravitated to his house, his mother explains. Besides football, Johnny liked to play marbles. A young girl did, as well, and some of the guys-only crowd were none too pleased by the prospect of co-educational marbles competition. They wanted to exclude the young female friend.
"Oh, let her play," Johnny said. His friends relented, if reluctantly.
Jones also enjoyed basketball. There was a goal in his back yard, but because of the many games played at the site, there was no grass. His mom did not mind, she said, because people are more important than a yard full of grass.
While Johnny clearly had a love of sports, Mrs. Jones Dillon says her daughter, Sandra, enjoyed gymnastics and basketball. Her other daughter, Ammie, liked books and writing and creative things. When Johnny and his Lampasas Badger teammates won the state track championship -- largely on the strength of Johnny's anchor leg in the mile relay event when he came from about 40 meters behind to win -- Ammie wrote a poem about the event. She also copyrighted it. "It's real good," says Mrs. Jones Dillon.
Now, almost 30 years later, Johnny's mother is simply trying to be available to her son as he battles for his life against cancer.
"We have trials in life," Mrs. Jones Dillon acknowledges. "You just take the bitter with the sweet. We don't know what His reason is for. It's not that God thinks you're good, or He thinks you're bad. It's just one of the trials you have."
She relates how her son told her: "You've got to pray, but you have to get up on the rooftop, because this is a big one. You're going to have to get up high to reach Him (for an answer)."
A project she is working on is compiling yet another scrapbook of her son's athletic exploits. A friend, the late Zula Tipton, "saved every clipping in every paper, I guess, that came out about Johnny."
***
Randy Hairston, like Jones, was a member of the Lampasas High School Class of 1976. His association with Jones goes all the way back to their youth baseball days. "Mrs. Anderson used to cook us fried chicken after our Little League games," says Hairston.
Just how good were those home-cooked meals?
"Oh, man!" exclaims Hairston.
An offensive tackle and a linebacker for the Badger varsity football team, Hairston remembers how then Oklahoma University coach Barry Switzer attended several of Lampasas' football games during Jones' senior year.
Texas' coach at the time, Darrell Royal, came to several practices and visited the team's locker room during Jones' last two years on the local campus, Hairston said.
Coaches from across the nation started paying attention to Jones as early as his sophomore year in high school, however.
"Johnny at times was leaning toward going to OU, but Coach Royal put on a rush at the last," recalls Hairston, who accompanied the Lampasas runningback on a recruiting visit to the University of Texas. "Everybody in Austin treated Johnny like he was the man," Hairston remembers.
Now an assistant manager for a Home Depot store in Austin, Hairston lives in nearby Bastrop. "Johnny is as good as gold," he declares. "He has some fantastic qualities."
For one thing, Hairston says, "He was always respectful of your parents when you brought him to the house. It was always: `Yes, sir,' and `Yes, ma'am.'"
Despite the fame Jones achieved, "He was never one to be in the limelight," Hairston said. "He hated it."
After the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, when Jones won a gold medal as a member of the United States' 400-meter relay team, sportswriters converged on Lampasas when Jones made a celebrated return to his hometown. Thousands of residents met him at the local airport, and Royal, who would coach Jones that next fall in the UT coach's final football season with the Longhorns, was present for the occasion.
When Jones and his friends met at a fellow athlete's residence, the sports reporters showed up.
Jones "didn't want to go outside and talk to the reporters," Hairston reminisces. "He wanted the rest of us to talk with them."
Though the Lampasas speedster drew crowds seemingly wherever he went, his idea of a good time in high school was to play pool or go fishing, Hairston said. "He wasn't into the fast pace. He liked to be out in the country with his friends, away from a lot of people."
When he entered college, though, "he had a lot of people wanting to be his friends for the wrong reasons. That was the start of his problems."
***
Like Hairston, another person in the Brackenridge waiting room who wanted to drop in on Jones was a former UT teammate, Johnny "Ham" Jones.
To help sort out the Joneses, Royal nicknamed Johnny Jones of Lampasas "Johnny Lam." Johnny Jones of Hamlin, Texas, was dubbed "Ham." When Anthony Jones arrived on campus in 1978, he became known as "Jam."
Jam wore the No. 24 burnt orange jersey, while Ham had No. 25. Johnny Lam wore No. 26.
"You couldn't find a better person than Johnny," Ham Jones said of his peer from Lampasas. Johnny "Ham," like Johnny Lam, lives in the Austin area. Ham coached at Austin McCallum High School for 12 years. He now teaches physical education at Lamar Middle School, and he also teaches driver's education for older students in the city.
Ham recounts how not long ago Johnny Lam told him: "We really need to get together, because we don't know when our health is going to go bad."
Lam Jones, his former teammate from Hamlin says, "doesn't worry about himself. He's concerned about other people."
An attractive woman standing next to Ham Jones interjects: "Johnny's had a lot of money, and a lot of people took advantage of him." Part of the problem was that the former New York Jets player did not invest his money the way he should have.
Though he could be bitter about his experiences, "He doesn't hold anything against anybody," she said.
But Ham recalls a conversation he had with Jones, who said, "I had a lot of friends when I had a lot of money, but now that I don't have any, I don't see that many (people) around."
***
It's 6 p.m., and several friends of Johnny Jones are congregated in the hallway around the corner from the ICU room in which he is staying.
Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton is to be in San Marcos in about an hour to speak at an awards banquet for his department. But he is not leaving the hospital yet. "I've got to speak to Johnny," the former Killeen High School quarterback says.
After Hamilton's high school career, he played at Southwest Texas State University for Coach Jim Wacker. Hamilton's mother and Johnny Jones' mother are best friends, he explains.
While everyone seems to remember Jones' incredible come-from-behind race in the Class AAA state track meet that catapulted the Lampasan into legendary status, Hamilton says he saw Jones top that feat at another meet.
The Travis County law enforcement official remembers how Jones was 300 yards behind the leader when he took the baton on the anchor leg of the mile relay event. "He came and got them," he recalls. In another incredible finish, he beat the previous leader in the race by a head.
"Every time I think of that I say, ‘My goodness,'" Hamilton said.
Of Jones, the former Killeen Kangaroo football star said, "He was phenomenal."
***
One of the most enduring friendships Jones has had is the one with former Lampasas Badger teammate Garry Milligan, now in his seventh year as an assistant football coach for Austin Lanier High School. Milligan, who played collegiate football at Texas A&M University, also coaches the boys' varsity soccer team at Lanier, and he teaches health and physical education.
"We've been best friends, and we remain best friends through the good times and the bad," says Milligan, as he keeps a watchful eye on his players during a practice session.
The first hint he had that all was not well with Jones came when Johnny injured his back in April. "The doctor said give it 90 days," Milligan recalls.
Every time Milligan would see Jones, "I'd plead with him to go to the doctor." But, having experienced lower-back pain himself, Milligan knew how slow to heal such injuries could be. Lower-back surgery does not have a high percentage of success either, he said.
For years, the two men have been fishing buddies.
The docks at Fayette County Lake near La Grange were a favorite fishing spot. There, the catfish and bass fishing was excellent. But there were other factors that made the times memorable, as well.
"We'd just sit and eat and talk and tell stories," says Milligan. "We'd sit on the dock till midnight." And even on those days when the two might fish all day and catch only one fish, Jones could not seem to get enough of the time. "He'd still want to stay," says Milligan.
Sometimes the conversation got so engrossing that when the two men did hook a fish, they were distracted long enough for their poles to be yanked off the dock and into the lake.
Though Jones may have held the edge in overall athletic ability during the years the two have known each other, Milligan enjoyed the upper hand at fishing. But elements of a friendly rivalry between the two sportsmen have long been evident.
"Every once in a while, he'd beat me and have bragging rights for awhile," concedes Milligan about Jones' fishing ability.
Says Milligan: "We compete on every single thing." That goes for pool, as well as fishing. Once, after the two had played almost 20 games of pool, the telephone rang. Jones was late for another commitment. "When are you going to take me to dinner?" his girlfriend asked him.
Jones hung up the phone. "Just one more game, Garry," he begged.
It's times like that Milligan remembers -- as well as the shared high school football experiences Jones and Milligan had in Lampasas.
What made the time special?
"Just playing together on the same team, being in the same huddle, just going through it together," answers the Austin Lanier offensive and defensive line coach.
Milligan played middle linebacker on defense and tackle on offense. He was a two-way starter from his sophomore through his senior year at LHS. Though it was the Badger line's responsibility to blow wide holes through an opponent's defensive line so Jones could scamper downfield, the swift runner was resourceful. Translated, that means he could slip through some small openings in the line, Milligan said. "He made us look like great blockers in those days," he admits.
Quarterback Lee Bridges -- who would go on to become a highly regarded high school football coach in Texas -- was good, but Jones' speed and good hands as a receiver did not hurt anything, either. "He would make Lee look like a passing quarterback," said Milligan, with a touch of admiration in his voice.
As good as Jones was, he still took some hard hits on the gridiron. Milligan recalls one such instance with amusement.
During one game, the Lampasas speedster scored three or four touchdowns. In the process, though, he suffered a concussion. After the game, Milligan and Jones were driving around a popular youth hangout, Storm's Drive-In restaurant.
"Garry, did we play a game tonight?" Jones asked his friend.
Remembers Milligan: "I said, ‘What are you talking about?'"
***
Good friends of Jones', such as Milligan and Lampasan David Gonzales -- the latter who roomed with Jones for a year in New York and worked for a friend of the Jets receiver -- have spent several nights with the Olympic gold medalist at Brackenridge.
"He'd be in so much pain, and it would ease at maybe 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning,"Milligan says. "We would talk about how much fishing we were going to do, because we were supposed to grow old together."
It has been noted by different sportswriters -- and by Jones himself -- that problems with drugs and alcohol cut his professional football career short. In recent years, though, Johnny was credited with having turned his life around. He began a program called "Locker Room." Schools invited Jones to be an honorary member of their football teams for an afternoon. He was paid $1,500 per appearance, $500 of which he donated to Special Olympics. He would share some of the highlights of his athletic days, but also point to how drugs wreaked havoc on what should have been an outstanding professional career. He also talked about brushes with the law and spending time in jail.
An account published earlier this year in The Dallas Morning News said that Jones "often reminds himself of the pain he has caused others. His friends and family marvel at the punishment he inflicts on himself with his guilty conscience.
"It's not important that I forgive myself," Jones said. "What's important is the way I live my life now."
Milligan remembers vividly the day Jones came to him after he moved out of Dallas. Jones showed up at Milligan's house in Austin and said, "Garry, I need a place to stay." Milligan was happy to open his home to an old friend, but he did so with some clear understandings.
"I said, `I have zero tolerance for drugs or alcohol.'" Jones assured his longtime friend that there would be no problems. Milligan went the extra mile in other ways, though, too, attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings with Jones.
"Rich, poor, black, white, alcohol abuse has no discrimination," Milligan says.
Jones told Milligan he would check into a drug rehabilitation center on Austin's east side, and he followed through on that commitment. Jones spent two years with Milligan, as he got back on his feet. He later worked for his former Lampasas High School coach, the late Scott Boyd, at an automobile dealership in the Fort Worth area. Jones then worked with a company that installed all-weather tracks and artificial turf at high school campuses.
Milligan notes with pride that Johnny Lam has been sober for 15 years now.
***
It is no exaggeration to say that Johnny Jones is in the battle of his life, as he seeks to beat cancer -- an opponent that knows no level playing field.
Still, Milligan sees more than a few rays of hope.
"He's always been a competitor," he says of the former UT football and track star. ""He's not going to give up. We talk about life and death, and I say, `We have too much life in front of us. We have too many things to do.'
"I see him beating the odds. It's bad, and he knows it." But, says Milligan: "If anybody can do it, it's him. I always tell him he's like a cat with nine lives."
Milligan believes it is essential to have a positive frame of mind in such difficult circumstances. "I don't ever let him see me down. It's a heartbreaker."
The interview draws to a close. Milligan has to take the field again to watch his players as they work on their kicking game.
"I'd like for everyone to pray for him," he says of Johnny Lam. "Any prayer will do. It's in God's hands."
***
Mary Jones Dillon says her son "is just a person who loves people. He doesn't care what color or kind." One person who is rooting for Jones is Lance Armstrong, the internationally acclaimed bicyclist who has won the Tour de France an unprecedented seven straight times.
Armstrong, who won his own battle with cancer, called a friend of Johnny's mother who works at the University of Texas. Armstrong offered his assistance if Jones wanted to go to a hospital in Little Rock, Ark., which could offer specialized care for the kind of cancer Jones has.
Said Jones' mother with gratitude: "You don't know how it makes you feel to know how much someone cares about your child."
Last Friday, Johnny Jones was moved out of ICU to a hospital patient room. As of Sunday, his condition had stabilized, and the pain had moderated, through medication, according to Jones' longtime friend Garry Milligan.
Jones reportedly was weighing his medical options, including being transferred to Houston's M.D. Anderson Cancer Center; the facility in Arkansas mentioned by Lance Armstrong; or remaining in the Austin area, where he could receive treatment at Brackenridge on an outpatient basis.
People who would like to contribute to a special fund set up to help defray his medical expenses can do so by contacting Cathy Walker at the Lampasas High School athletic office at 512-556-2327. They also can do so in person. In addition, dropoff points have been set up at First Texas Bank (contact person: Diana Jackson) or The National Banks of Central Texas (contact person: Sally Yancy). Checks should be payable to Johnny Lam Jones Medical Fund.
I bleed maroon
First Time Poster
Get well soon, Lam!
I always liked the way that guy played. Fun to watch!
My brother graduated from Bryan (Tx) High School in 1976 w/ Curtis Dickey (who went to aggy to play football & track) and he talked about the times that Lam & Dickey competed in high school track events from time to time w/ Lam always winning. as a matter of fact, Lam & Dickey were on the same '76 Olym team. ... And To Those Who Are Adding " Ham & Jam ", Don't Forget " Bam - Bam " - Steve McMichael
Uninformed
5,000+ Posts
During the game the announcers mentioned that Lam Jones has "bone and blood" cancer. I assume what he really has is a hematopoetic cancer such as leukemia or lymphoma.
Michigan Horn
< 25 Posts
I read somewhere that he has myeloma. Not a good tumor to have. I wish him the best. He sure as hell was special to watch both on the football field and on the track.
Best wishes to Lam.
My father has multiple myeloma. He's had it since 1998. He's gone through a couple of sets of bone marrow transplants (he has been his own donor). It is a relatively rare form of cancer, but can be managed if found early enough. Unfortunately there is still no cure.
My father has multiple myeloma. He's had it since 1998. He's gone through a couple of sets of bone marrow transplants (he has been his own donor). It is a relatively rare form of cancer, but can be managed if found early enough. Unfortunately there is still no cure.
E-1 Jock 97
< 25 Posts
Johnny LAM Jones - Austin 8 News
I don't know if it's been posted yet, but there's an article and short video coverage of Johnny LAM Jones from a few weeks ago. Prayers to him and his family/friends during this difficult time.
I don't know if it's been posted yet, but there's an article and short video coverage of Johnny LAM Jones from a few weeks ago. Prayers to him and his family/friends during this difficult time.
hook'em_horns
100+ Posts
prayers to he and his family i hope he makes it.
Orangesweat
2,500+ Posts
No updates in two months. I'm assuming no news is good news. Keep up the fight Johnny Lam.
*** No public updates. I'm sure the family knows what's going on. But he's still alive and that's great.****
*** No public updates. I'm sure the family knows what's going on. But he's still alive and that's great.****
G
gobears92
Guest
we love you buddy....prayers galore....
A
Anonymous
Guest
I met Johnnie for the first time, prior to the OSU game. He was selling photos of the UT Tower that he personally took after last year's championship game. I would like to purchase some of his photography, but don't know how to get in contact with him. If you can help, please send me an email @ [email protected] YOU...TODD STEWART
A
Anonymous
Guest
I first met lam in 84 when he owned a few duplexes in s. austin off Scirocco He was married to a woman named Angela. What I rememberd most about lam was he was a very appoachable person. You know how some people who gain celebrity status they change but lam was not like that he just acted like a regular guy. Im praying for his speedy recovery god bless you lam!
Orangesweat
2,500+ Posts
I think about him every time I drive through Lampasas. I'm in awe and am thinking to myself, "Wow, this is where Johnny Lam Jones grew up."
lamjones26
< 25 Posts
Dear Hornfans,
Thanks for all the prayers! I really appreciate all the kind words and generous memories. Reading all the post brought tears to my eyes and reminded me of why I became a Longhorn in the beginning. Longhorns are just good people. Thanks for considering me one of your own! If you get a chance read my Thank You Letter on my Website atThe Link Thanks again! Oh, by the way your prayers are working. I think the Man up stairs might be a member of HornFans because my Cancer is in remission! Thanks again!
Thanks for all the prayers! I really appreciate all the kind words and generous memories. Reading all the post brought tears to my eyes and reminded me of why I became a Longhorn in the beginning. Longhorns are just good people. Thanks for considering me one of your own! If you get a chance read my Thank You Letter on my Website atThe Link Thanks again! Oh, by the way your prayers are working. I think the Man up stairs might be a member of HornFans because my Cancer is in remission! Thanks again!
Recent Threads
-
Prayers for my sister
- Started by Vino Bevo
- Replies: 19
- Prayer Requests
Prediction Results Threads
