We all know him and we all love him. Mr. Jones. Whether you know him as a history teacher, Major League Fishing commentator, basketball coach, college baseball athlete, or an MMA fighter, he is a man held with high regard.
Mr. Jones was born into the average family with nothing out of the ordinary. His father and mother both had decent, stable jobs and lived in the Reidland area of Paducah, and he along with his older sister. Later on, while in high school his sister had gotten pregnant by her boyfriend and they planned on getting married but unfortunately her boyfriend passed away in a car accident. This devastated Mr. Jones’s father as he turned to drugs and soon became addicted along with his mother. This forced him to live with his grandparents for quite some time. He said during these years he became bitter and furious and in his words “Pissed off at the world.” Since he was envious of his peers that had normal families and said he only got through these years because he could hear his grandmother pray for him and his family each and every night. During this time Mr. Jones had also been hanging around the wrong crowd with people he didn’t really think were friends. The only outlet he knew at the time was baseball but he needed to bring his grades up to make the team. He would always say “I might not have been the smartest, but I wasn’t afraid to work.” He then began to study day and night for each and every test he had in school and eventually made the baseball team where he cut off his old friends and made new friends. According to Mr. Jones “Baseball saved my life because the good lord blessed me with the ability to throw a baseball really hard and so I became a pitcher and it paid for my tuition.”  As the middle school years rolled by he eventually made the high school baseball team where he poured his heart and soul into it. At this time he also found a class that seemed to click with him. History as he found it easiest and the class had naturally come to him. It was during this time his grandparents had both passed away and he moved back in with his mother who was a raging alcoholic he would recall many nights when she came home with a package of bologna and a loaf of bread and was told to make this food last until she would get her next paycheck. Mr. Jones recalls this era. “I had some dark moments in life and rationing food at times and being stressed if you can keep food on the table and the lights on. You never forget where you came from and empathize with them as you have been through it and you can change your situation.”
Soon after his high school graduation Mr. Jones was scouted by multiple colleges for a baseball scholarship and after deciding for a while he accepted the scholarship from the University of North Carolina and decided to play baseball until he declared his major in history. After a few years, he transferred to Murray State University where he finished out his major and after graduation, he decided to try his hand at MMA. Although he didn’t make it big time he did say around the world including one from South Africa who gave him a scarf after their battle which is displayed in his classroom. He also said many opponents would have dinners with each other before fights and were very respectful to one another and said that although they seemed tough as steel they would cry like babies when they would receive news of their fathers or mothers passing away. Mr. Jones had this to say regarding his years spent in the ring.“I needed discipline in my life at the time. I think I was full of frustration and anger and it helped me channel it into martial arts.”

 After a few years in the ring, Mr. Jones decided his career would be teaching history at Reidland High School while also being a basketball coach but after the school closed he moved to McCracken to continue teaching history. It was also around this time a friend of his said the Major League Fishing association needed a commentator and asked Mr. Jones if he was interested in it and he accepted it. “I hated the way my voice sounded but then I realized that it was a money maker.” This a statement Mr. Jones often told his students when the MLF was mentioned. Perhaps the most memorable part of this is when he came up with his catchphrases such as his famous “WOW!” whenever a record-breaking fish was caught or the biggest of the tournament. He has also been in a couple of video games as a voice actor in the Major League Fishing series. But perhaps the most memorable of these quotes is “If you get it you get it, if you don’t you don’t.” his most iconic catchphrase is etched in the minds of his students “At 2:10 I’m going fishing.”