Gomer Jones

College coach infobox
Name = Gomer Jones

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Caption = Gomer Jones November 1929
DateOfBirth = February 26, 1914
Birthplace = flagicon|USA Cleveland, Ohio
DateOfDeath = death date and age|1971|3|21|1914|2|26
Sport = American football
College =
Title =
CurrentRecord =
Awards =
Championships =
CFbDWID = 1208
Player = Y
Years = 1933-1935
Team = Ohio State University
Position = Center / Linebacker
FootballHOF = 1978
Coach = Y
CoachYears = 1936-40
1941-46
1947-63
1964-65
CoachTeams = Ohio State University - asst
John Carroll University - asst
University of Oklahoma - asst
University of Oklahoma - head

Gomer Thomas Jones (February 26, 1914 – March 21, 1971) was a football athlete and coach. He was a Hall of Fame center for the Ohio State University Buckeyes and a coach of the University of Oklahoma Sooners for 19 years.

Playing career

Jones was one of the outstanding college football players in the 1930s. From 1933 to 1935 he played for the Ohio State University Buckeyes as a center on offense and a linebacker on defense. Jones was the anchor of the Buckeye offensive line, and was named team MVP following both the 1934 and 1935 seasons. In 1935 he was named team captain, and was a consensus All-American. Jones was selected by the Chicago Cardinals in the 1936 NFL draft, the 15th player selected overall; however, he chose instead to pursue a career in coaching.

Jones was posthumously inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1978 as a player. Earlier that year he had been inducted into Ohio State's own Varsity O Hall of Fame.

Coaching career

Jones served as assistant to Ohio State head coach Francis Schmidt from 1936 until Schmidt was forced to resign following the 1940 season. From 1941 through 1946 Jones was an assistant coach at John Carroll University. Jones greatest coaching success, however, came as an assistant at the University of Oklahoma. Jones served loyally as Oklahoma head coach Bud Wilkinson's top assistant for 17 years. As the line coach, Jones developed 16 All-America linemen, and was the architect of Oklahoma's great lines.

Following Coach Wilkinson's retirement in 1964, Wilkinson himself engineered Jones's accession to the head coaching job. However, after producing two disappointing seasons (with a record of 9-11-1), Jones resigned as head coach but retained the post of athletic director (he had dual roles prior to his head coaching resignation). Part of the reason for his early troubles was due to the dismissal of four of his better players for having signed professional contracts before their college eligibility had expired. [cite news | pages=22-25 | date=January 1965 | publisher=Sooner Magazine | title=Bowled Over By A Mouthful | url=http://digital.libraries.ou.edu/sooner/articles/p22-25_1965v37n3_OCR.pdf ]

Jones, still the Oklahoma athletic director, died in New York City while attending the 1971 National Invitational Tournament (NIT).

External links

* [http://collegefootball.org/famersearch.php?id=30063 Gomer Jones bio in College Football Hall of Fame]
*imdb name|id=0428159|name=Gomer Jones

Notes

Persondata
NAME=Jones, Gomer
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Jones, Gomer Thomas
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Football player and coach
DATE OF BIRTH=February 26, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH=Cleveland, Ohio
DATE OF DEATH=March 21, 1971
PLACE OF DEATH=New York City, NY