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Jones: From grappling to mentoring

On “The Andy Griffith Show” there is a famous episode where Barney Fife learns that he no longer qualifies to be a deputy.

By the new state standards, deputies must be at least 5-foot-8 and weigh 145 pounds. Barney is just a little shy of both marks.

When Deputy Justin Jones of the Surry County Sheriff’s Office was in high school, the teenager would have fallen short by a wide margin.

Still, once the young man joined the department a decade ago, no one could question Jones’s ability to handle a rowdy suspect.

You see, Jones is also a former two-time state wrestling champion.

In fact, his accomplishments on the mat were so impressive that this year he has become just the second wrestler ever inducted into the Surry County Sports Hall of Fame, behind Mount Airy’s former state champion Dennis France, who may be better known for his outstanding work as a coach.

Eric Jessup had just spent one year as an assistant wrestling coach at North Surry when Kirk Martin stepped down, leaving the former Mount Airy High School wrestler in charge of the team. His rookie season as coach was Jones’s freshman year, 2004-05.

Jessup says he can’t take credit for Jones’s abilities because the kid was great right out of the gates as a freshman, going undefeated through the conference season and all the way up to the regional tournament.

Jones was named the top seed in his 103-pound weight class as a freshman, the coach recalled. That is a lot of pressure on a young kid.

The young man who handed Jones his first loss is someone that he had beaten twice earlier in the season, noted Jessup. But, the freshman just had a tough day and lost again to get knocked out of the consolation bracket one match before he would have qualified for the state tournament.

Bouncing back

“Maybe that was a good thing because he came out the next year just highly motivated,” said Jessup. “I’ve never seen anyone come in like that.” Jones made it through the regional tournament and progressed all the way to the state championship match as a sophomore before losing and receiving silver.

Jones recalled the champion’s name was Kyle Sampson. After the match Kyle’s coach came up to shake Jones’s hand. He told the sophomore that he had been hearing so much about Jones that he got his hands on some video tape of his matches. The coach and Sampson had been studying those tapes for two weeks to prepare for him.

Watching tape to prepare for one wrestler in a whole meet? Jones said he never would have thought to do something like that.

“That might have been the best thing to happen to him, too, because then he came back even more determined as a junior,” Jessup said of his star wrestler.

While other wrestlers hit growth spurts and have to bump up two or three weight classes, Jones stayed in the 103-pound division. He said he was so small back then that he didn’t even have to cut weight (dieting and other weight-loss measures to control his pounds) until his senior year.

Those two years of experience made a difference at 103 pounds, which sometimes has talented, but inexperienced wrestlers.

Jones tore through his weight class in both his junior and senior seasons, winning the state title both years.

These days the state tournament is broken down by each school size classification from 1A to 4A, Jessup said. A 1A wrestler never faces off against a 3A or 4A wrestler.

Dennis France won the state title in 1977 when there was no division by size, Jessup said. He took on kids from all four divisions as a senior.

There were maybe 150 or 160 schools in the state that offered wrestling back then, the coach said. By the mid-2000s when Jones came along, there were that many schools in just the two smallest classes themselves. So the state combined 1A and 2A into a single class.

Jones is the only two-time state champion from this area during that time of the 1A/2A championship, Jessup said.

By the time he was done, Jones had amassed a long list of accomplishments.

He earned four all-conference honors, four conference championships, three appearances in the state finals match, two state titles and a ranking in the Top 25 in the nation by Wrestling USA magazine.

He compiled a jaw-dropping 144-8 won-loss record. Jessup said that broke the North Surry record for career wins (which has since been bested) and is still highest career winning percentage in school history.

What made the young man so good?

“He was absolutely tenacious; it was like unleashing a caged animal on somebody,” said Jessup. “He was the same way in practice. In four years he never missed a day of practice.” He added that Jones also had four years of perfect attendance.

“I’ve had kids who worked hard,” the coach said. “I’ve never had anyone who worked harder.”

As for his physical skills, Jones was fast and strong, Jessup said. With those gifts and his work ethic, Jones practiced a signature move over and over. This move, called the high crotch takedown, became unstoppable.

In that senior year, Jessup thought that Jones’s regional bracket was the toughest in the state. It didn’t slow the senior down.

He pinned a wrestler from Starmount in the semifinals in around 50 seconds, said the coach. In the state finals, Jones wore out the other kid; it wasn’t even close. He won by eight or nine points.

He was a great leader, too, said Jessup. One day the coach walked into the gym to see the senior star mopping off the mats.

This is a job usually given to a freshman who isn’t starting yet, but here is the reigning state champion leading by example, he said.

“Some kid lost his headgear? ‘Here, use mine.’”

Of those mere eight losses in four years, Jessup takes the blame on one.

“There were a couple of times I had to bump him up a weight class to help the team out,” said Jessup.

In one match, it was important that North Surry didn’t give up a pin to one of the best wrestlers in the state at 112 pounds. Jessup pitted Jones against the talented opponent, who had about a 10-pound weight advantage.

Jones lost, but he didn’t get pinned — that meant a difference of three points to the team total, which gave North Surry the win, he said. Jones didn’t get upset because he wanted the team to succeed.

After sports

Jones graduated in 2008 and knew what he wanted to do. But he had to wait a little while.

He wanted to enroll in Basic Law Enforcement Training, but the rule was that all students had to be at least 20 years old by the time of graduation.

Jones waited until he was 19½ years old, knowing he’d turn 20 before classes ended.

Right now the Mount Airy Police Department has openings to fill, but in 2010 there were more graduates than jobs available, he said.

A landscaping job in the city’s Public Works Department provided him an income while he weekly bugged Sheriff Graham Atkinson about any opening that might come up.

He said it took about seven months, but his tenacity paid off.

The first job was only part-time, and the city wouldn’t let him split time between it and the sheriff’s office.

“I took a chance and quit the job in the city,” he said. Two months later he was able to move into a full-time position.

Back then, the 20-year-old was still living at home — if it weren’t for the free rent, he said he couldn’t have afforded to work part-time and wait two months.

Jones has advanced his training since being with the department. He named off some of his accomplishments:

Both basic and intermediate certifications in being a detention officer, basic law enforcement, SWAT certification, school resource officer certification, and training on many pieces of gear and weaponry.

Switching roles

After a few years as a jailer, Jones is now in his second year at Surry Central High School as its school resource officer.

It can be a negative environment at times as a jailer, he admitted. The inmates have already made mistakes in their lives and started down a bad road, and they seldom are interested in listening to any advice to try to turn things around.

At the high school, he said, “you can intercept them before they go down the wrong road. You can say something that impacts their lives.” The teens are more likely to listen.

Things are different this year than last, he added. Half the students are remote learning from home, so there aren’t as many people around. And he doesn’t get to deal directly with kids as much because of social distancing rules.

There are cones with yellow caution tape going down the center of hallways so that students stay apart while walking back and forth to classrooms, he noted. Teachers walk with students to the cafeteria and sit in their section to watch over them at lunch.

Still, he enjoys his job with the department and plans to stay with it for years to come.

Jessup said he would love to see Jones eventually move over to North Surry when long-time SRO Delinda Rawley retires in a couple of years. Then maybe he could convince Jones to take over coaching the wrestling team.

Jones said that might have been a goal once. He even coached Meadowview Magnet Middle School’s team for four years.

However, in 2012 he married Ashley and now they have two daughters: Ansley and Adley. The family life and his job don’t leave him with the free time to give to coaching.

So where does he see himself in 10 years?

Jones laughed. Sheriff Atkinson asked that question during the job interview 10 years ago. Jones answered honestly that he eventually saw himself in Graham’s seat.

Right now, Sheriff Steve Hiatt has two years left on his term and has talked about running twice more. That would put Sheriff Hiatt retiring in 10 years. By then, Jones will be 41 with 20 years of experience. That idea of running for sheriff is still on his mind.

If he goes after it as tenaciously as he sought a deputy’s position and wrestling excellence, don’t count him out.

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Source: https://www.mtairynews.com

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