High school football: Resilient Jones overcomes adversity to beat Edgewater, claim regional title

ORLANDO — Pick a cliché or mantra about resiliency or focus and there’s a good chance it will fit Jones High School’s football team over the past month.

The evidence of those attributes was all over the field Saturday afternoon as the Tigers routed top-seeded — and previously undefeated — Edgewater 42-13 to win the Region 1-3M championship.

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“My kids are resilient,” Jones coach Elijah Williams said. “A lot of my kids don’t live like everybody lives. Their housing situation isn’t like everybody’s housing situation. They go home and it’s a different whole thing.

"These kids are different. I know some of the things and some of the tribulations they have to go through. We went around and passed out 50 turkeys the day before Thanksgiving and I really got to see some of the guys' living conditions. Most important, we just care for them. We love these guys. They show up every day and they give us 100 percent in the midst of whatever they got going on — whatever they got going on here, whatever they have going on there. This is their release. They come here and they play hard for us. We just love these guys.”

Quarterback Christopher Tooley, who was playing defensive back in October, threw two touchdown passes to Jaylen Williams and also rushed for a score. The defense pitched in with six takeaways, including a late pick-six by George Brown.

A late-season quarterback change could be a disruption for a lot of programs. For Jones, it’s barely a blip on the radar screen compared with everything else they’ve dealt with during the postseason.

“Man, It’s been crazy. Every week something’s happening,” said Jones senior defensive end/tight end Dylan Wade, who is committed to Maryland. Wade’s fake punt conversion in the second quarter sparked the Tigers and led to the team’s first touchdown Saturday. “We overcome adversity and you see what we’re doing. Just stay focused. We all know where we want to go. We all want to go to states and we know what we’ve got to do to get there.”

Concerns over Hurricane Nicole, the first named storm to make landfall in Florida in November since 1998, caused the regional quarterfinal against Wekiva to be pushed back from Friday to Saturday, Nov. 12. As the Tigers were putting the finishing touches on that win, shots rang out in the darkened parking lot. Most of the players instinctively responded by lying facedown on the field, while several others bolted to get off the field altogether.

19-year-old Gamaine Patrick Brown, a Jones graduate and friend of several current Tigers players, was killed and two others were wounded. When the players finally emerged from the locker room, football was the furthest thing from their minds.

Many appeared shaken and spoke with family members in hushed, concerned tones. None was willing to speak on the record about what they experienced at the time. It was too raw, too early to begin to comprehend what was happening much less try to put words to it.

Two days later, one of the Jones starters was shot and wounded in an unrelated incident. Tigers coaches started scheduling longer practices and told players to stay at home last Friday even though there were several other games in Central Florida — including a highly anticipated matchup between Edgewater versus Tampa Bay Tech.

“(Practice) has been keeping us from everything, out of trouble,” said junior running back Jerrian Parker, who scored two touchdowns in the first half against Edgewater. “Our team being together. Everybody knows … that was my friend who got killed. Just being around my teammates (has been important).”

High school coaches already wear so many hats for their players in addition to X's and O's. Those hats include being a father figure, mentor, guidance counselor, life skills teacher, motivator, disciplinarian and so much more. Williams and his staff have been forced to add grief counselors and safety monitors to that list.

"It's always something," Williams said. "Some days may be more severe than others, but that's what a coach is. You coach at a school, our kids in certain neighborhoods, you're going to get some of that. That's what it is.

We have great kids. I am just so proud. In the midst of all that, we have great students, great kids and great admin, and great history and great community. We're resilient. We keep it going."

Jones’ semifinal game was played at the school last Saturday at 10 a.m., despite pleas reported by the Orlando Sentinel of Oviedo fans asking for the game to be moved to a different location out of safety concerns.

The Tigers dominated Oviedo and put the finishing touches on another regional title Saturday. Three playoff games, all played on Saturday at different times. Edgewater Athletic Director Josh Vandergrift told the Sentinel on Monday that part of the reason why the game was being played Saturday instead of a traditional Friday is because it would be easier to get security on Saturday than it would be the Friday after Thanksgiving.

The conditions and storms swirling outside the program have been difficult, but Jones has weathered them all and now will host Homestead next week — the final hurdle to claim a spot in the Class 3M state championship game.

“The last three weeks have really been crazy,” said Jones senior linebacker Malik Bryant, who is committed to Miami. “With everything going on around Jones, at Jones. Just trying to get ready for the playoffs and trying to advance every week has really been a challenge. But our team has been taking that adversity on and embracing it.

“It’s been hard on everybody, just being that (Brown) was a close friend to most of the guys on the team. So really, we’ve just been trying to balance everything going on at home while in the locker room. That’s the challenge that everybody’s trying to overcome. But coach has been staying on us, ‘Hey, whatever is going on at home, try to leave it at home. Try to come to practice and forget about it,’ and I feel like the guys have been embracing that really well.”

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: High school football: Resilient Jones overcomes adversity to claim regional title