The KC Jones Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Sunday, August 4th, 2002
Like many
of your former Celtics teammates, you were born during
the decade of The Great Depression – the same year, in
fact, that Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly
solo across the Atlantic Ocean (1932). What stands out most in your mind about growing up during
this period of nationwide economic hardship, and how did
it shape you as a person?
Times were tough in the ‘30s, and we moved
around a lot. My
father moved from job-to-job when I was growing up, so
we were never in one place for very long.
I was born in Taylor, Texas, and then from there
we moved to Austin.
We moved to Corpus Christi when I was three,
Dallas when I was five, McGregor when I was eight, and
San Francisco when I was nine.
My father served three years in the U.S. Navy.
That’s why we moved from Corpus Christi to
Dallas, and that’s how we ended up in San Francisco.
I played a lot of softball in Texas, and some soccer in
junior high. That’s
when I started playing basketball, at the recreation
center in San Francisco.
Everything was segregated back then.
I remember having to read the signs that would
tell you where to sit.
On buses it was always in the back.
In the movie houses it was the so-called crow’s nest,
which was the balcony area of the theater.
Those are some of the things that I remember.
Jackie Robinson had a tremendous influence on me. Joe Louis
also left a lasting impression. There were no TVs, but we had a radio.
I remember listening to his bouts, the big ones
against Max Schmeling and Billy Conn.
Those things really stood out in my mind and left
a big impression on me.
You’re a graduate of
the now-closed Commerce High School of San Francisco.
At what point did you realize that you could play
collegiate basketball?
I liked playing basketball, but I wasn’t recruited. Mildred Smith, my history teacher at Commerce, was lobbying
for me at the local college – the University of San
Francisco. I
didn’t know this at the time, and only found out five
years later. She
was calling Phil Woolpert, the head coach, and meeting
with him on a consistent basis.
With her support,
and that of a local sportswriter who was always in my
court, USF offered me a scholarship - the only school to do so.
Do you know who Bill
Russell was at that point in time?
No, I didn’t know anything about Bill.
Let’s
talk about the 1953-54 season. On a December night
in 1953, the University of San Francisco – unranked at
the time – played the tenth-ranked California Bears.
Cal boasted a veteran lineup featuring second team
All-American center Bob McKeen and sensational playmaker
Bob Matheny. On paper the game looked like a
mismatch, but Coach Woolpert had answers for both McKeen
and Matheny – healthy doses of Bill Russell and KC Jones. Russell would score 23 points and block 13
shots, and you would display the trademark defense that
made you famous. The result was a 51-33 victory
that put USF on the map. What do you remember most
about that game?
Our team was very close. We played together
as a unit, and we got along very well, both on and off
the court. We were convinced that we could beat
Cal, and we grew more confident as the game went on.
Bill blocked a lot of shots that game, and Bill never
blocked them out-of-bounds. He always blocked the
shots in the direction of a teammate, and this made it
easier to start the transition to offense. We did
a good job of shutting down McKeen and Matheny, and
these two guys were Cal’s primary threats.
