XAVIER NATION MAGAZINE FEATURE: Game Face

We have seen it before on the basketball court, but never in such a wholesome, joyful, unbridled way. Big smile, intimidating glare, pounding of the chest, flexing biceps, exuberant exhortations to his teammates.

It could be a breakout season for Xavier Musketeer forward Tyrique Jones—junior years so often are—although there are no guarantees.

If hard work in the offseason is any indication, though, there is ample reason for hope.

Like an eager boot-camp recruit last summer, Jones dropped and gave us 20…pounds, that is, from his 6-foot-9-inch frame. Nine of those inches occurred between his seventh- and eleventh-grade years—a terrific if unorthodox way of building a high school program, yes? Jones dropped the weight under the watchful eye (weekly checks on Fridays and Mondays) of the staff of longtime strength and conditioning coach Matt Jennings and with the help of XU's health-care professionals. Not to mention by giving up fried chicken, ultimately pizza (well, most of the time), and most impressively his Jamaica-born mom's beloved stew peas, rice, and rib-sticking dumplings. "That's when I knew he was really serious," says mother Petronia (Winnie) Bailey, chuckling over the phone from Connecticut. "Tyrique loves stew peas and rice."

Tyrique the Sculpted is a jaw-dropping sight, a buff 235 ready to deliver on the promise of that day in Omaha two seasons ago, when as a freshman he was unstoppable: 8-for-8 from the field for 16 points in an 82–80 conquest of Creighton. It was a breakout game of "what could be" but hasn't yet proven to be (freshman average of 4.2 points and 3.1 rebounds in 11 minutes per game, sophomore average of 7 points and 4.5 rebounds in 15 minutes per game).

Too often, Jones would get winded, his energy unable to keep pace with what was in his mind. He knew he had to get fitter.

Winnie Bailey immigrated to the United States with her family when she was 11 years old—the same age as, coincidentally, her future soulmate in high school (and they had hoped for life), Lester Jones.

He was a basketball star. She was a star sprinter.

Things apparently took a bad turn for Lester shortly thereafter. It's a tough story as Tyrique tells it: Father goes to prison, gets released, finds a job, re-enters the lives of his two young sons, and dies less than two years later.

"It wasn't easy," Jones remembers. "I don't have many memories of my father. But my mom has kept his memory alive for my brother and me. I remember the day my dad came back for a short time. It was nighttime. We were living in East Hartford, Connecticut. A friend brought him back. I remember seeing the joy on my mother's face when he came back. But then my father passed away."

I go looking for the obituary. It comes up right away.

"Lester Antoni Jones, 29, of Fairmount St., Hartford, passed away Wednesday [May 1, 2002] in Hartford. He was born Nov. 24, 1972, in Nassau, Bahamas, son of Arnold Jones of Jamaica and Ruth Brown of Hartford. He lived in Hartford the last 17 years and was a 1992 graduate of Weaver High School. He is survived by his two sons, Dajoun and Tyrique Jones of East Hartford [and] his fiance, Petronia Bailey of East Hartford [and] a host of other relatives and friends. Lester will always be remembered by his warm smile and unique personality."

Lester's nickname for Tyrique was "Eighty-Eight," homage to Tyrique's birth weight of eight pounds, eight ounces, now proudly tattooed on Jones's right shoulder.

Lester died two days before Eighty-Eight's fifth birthday.

"I was raised by my mom and my [three-and-a-half-year-older] brother, Dajoun," says Jones. "I'm a mama's boy, I admit it. My brother and I stayed with my grandmother at night while my mom was working late. I couldn't grasp it when my dad died, and then a few years later my grandmother passed away and by then I was able to grasp it. Dajoun had to be the male presence in the family in his teenage years. He couldn't even play a sport in high school. He had to go to work when he was 16. And that's my family. We're very close. And I cherish every moment of it, even the rough times."

Jones says he speaks about his father like he knew him his whole life, speaking softly as he drifts into reverie. "My mom gave us the details and the stories. She never says anything bad about him. I look like my mom, but I have my father's competitiveness—and his calf muscles. Me and my mama are best friends. We talk about everything. Everything."

Before every game, Winnie calls Tyrique.

"Do your best," she says.

"And God will do the rest," he answers, repeating the verse his mother gave him as far back as memory goes.

For a person playing on such a national stage, it is hard to believe that Jones's best individual sports moment came when he was in the eighth grade, and that it wasn't even in basketball. It was in football.

"I was a tight end and defensive end," he recalls.
He idolized Dwight Freeney, who graduated from the same high school where Jones matriculated for three years (Bloomfield) before transferring to a prep school, Vermont Academy. Jones was born only a year before Freeney graduated from Bloomfield, but for as long as Jones can remember he knew that Freeney had been a three-sport star at Bloomfield, an All-American defensive end at Syracuse University, and a seven-time Pro Bowler with the Indianapolis Colts.

And so Jones set out to make himself into the next Dwight Freeney. He even copied the future Hall of Famer's vaunted spin move, and couldn't wait to play under the lights.

Finally, he got the chance.

The opposing team was driving for
a touchdown when Jones, playing defensive end, intercepted a pass at his team's 4-
yard line.

"I broke a tackle and ran and ran and ran, 96 yards," he recalls. "Just as I was crossing the goal line, I noticed my mom at about the 30-yard line, running down the sideline. She had been running stride for stride with me."

Jones thinks he would have been a really good defensive end. With that nine-inch growth spurt in his early teen years, there's plenty of reason to believe he'd have been a lot more than really good.

But he never got the chance.

Jones remembers telling the Bloomfield football coach early in his high school career that he was going to miss a day or two of summer workouts to play in an AAU basketball tournament.

The coach's response?

"He looked me right in the eye and said, 'Don't even come back.' "

"I felt everything being crushed inside me," Jones says. "I'm on good terms with that coach now, but it's not something I'd ever say to a kid. You cut off a kid, you don't know where he's going to wind up. Hartford is a rough place to grow up. But it made me focus on basketball. I didn't have football to go back to. It turned out that my cousin was really good at basketball, knew a bunch of guys in town, and he'd call me for workouts and to play games. But it didn't come easy for me."

Jones, you see, hadn't picked up basketball until the sixth grade. He was a late bloomer.

"My brother was always working, but on rare occasions he'd get to come to my games," he says. "One time he said, 'Ty, I'm going to change your name on my phone to Last Two Minutes. Because every time I come to one of your games, you don't get in until the last two minutes.' "That motivated me. I started taking basketball more seriously, because I wanted to get in before the last two minutes."

In the end, it really didn't really matter what sport Jones would have chosen, because what he craved above all was competition. Winnie had seen the same thing in her fiancé.

Jones remembers being at the free-throw line in Wisconsin last November and hearing, "C'mon, Eighty-Eight!" "We [Xavier] were playing the Badgers, those guys in red," he recalls. "My mom is the only one who calls me 'Eighty-Eight.' I didn't even know she was coming to the game. But I know I'm in good hands when I hear her voice."

Jones's personality—churning, voluble, demonstrative—is the most effervescent on the Musketeers squad. He comes by it honestly.

"It's what I saw every day growing up," he says. "I've seen Mom get on me and my brother, but it never lasted. She never lets her having a bad day have an effect on the way she treats other people. She can brighten any room. There's just something about her."

An air of "positivity" is the way big brother describes it.

"There's never a dull moment," notes Dajoun. "Her attitude is 'Be open with your feelings, be a catalyst, a spark, because people will feed off it.' People ask me, 'Why are you so happy?' My mom taught us, 'Every day is a new day, be grateful and thankful that God woke you up today.' Tyrique's attitude, especially with this being a junior-led Xavier team, is: 'I am the rock of this team. I am going to get this team going. I have to bring this team along with me.' "

Matt Jennings, Xavier's longtime strength and conditioning coach, cannot volunteer many specifics about Jones's weight loss program because it would violate HIPAA privacy rules. But on personality, Jennings is a gold mine.

"Loud, boisterous voice, distinctive laugh, great sense of humor," says Jennings, football center in the early 1990s for the North Carolina Tar Heels. "The part that gets lost in all that is that Tyrique has a softer, more sensitive side. He's aware of what's going on around him. He has an eye for those in need of something. Very little gets by him."

Jones's eye for what matters is extraordinarily keen, even things that go way back.

For instance, he remembers the cheeseburgers that his dad made for him and his brother when he was 3 and Dajoun 7.

"Dad whipped up some potato salad and a burger with white American cheese on it," Jones recalls.

"I've even told my mother, 'Mom, you've got everything else in the kitchen, but that was one serious burger.' "

Dajoun, being a few years older, recalls a bit more.

"Dad made it from scratch, put all the spices and veggies right inside it, pepper and onions. Tyrique's right. They were really great, one of a kind."

Freshman year, Parents Weekend, two years ago, Xavier University.

"I want you to know you're going to be in my performance tonight," Jones tells his brother and mother.

"What are you going to do?" Dajoun asks him.

"Don't worry about it, you'll see," he answers, grinning.

Just before it's Jones's turn in the dunk contest at Cintas Center, he calls Winnie and Dajoun onto the floor, stations them in front of the basket, mother first, brother directly behind her, both facing the hoop.

Running start, explosion, slam dunk! Right over the top of both of them.
Metaphorically, Jones was climbing on their shoulders.

They didn't feel a thing.

Neither did Tyrique. He was eighty-eight feet high.

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We have seen it before on the basketball court, but never in such a wholesome, joyful, unbridled way. Big smile, intimidating glare, pounding of the chest, flexing biceps, exuberant exhortations to his teammates.

Players Mentioned

Tyrique Jones

Upcoming Events

Xavier University Athletics