Julius Jones hung up the pads in 2011 after seven seasons in the NFL.
Tim Hayes
Julius Jones sat in his locker at Texas Stadium on Thanksgiving Day in 2004, immersed in the music resonating from his headphones as the rookie running back for the Dallas Cowboys partook in his pregame rituals.
He soon glanced up and saw that Jerry Jones, the team's outspoken owner, was making his way over for a pep talk. Well, sort of.
"He was like, 'Are you ready?' " Julius Jones recalled. "I'm like, 'Yes sir, I've been waiting my whole life for this.' He had a couple of words for me. All he said was, 'Good, don't f- -- up.' And then he walked off. I was just like, 'Oh man.' "
Not long thereafter, the only thing Julius Jones f'ed up was the defense of the Chicago Bears as he rushed for 150 yards on 33 carries and scored two touchdowns for the Cowboys in their 21-7 triumph.
It was just the third regular-season game of his NFL career, and the most memorable performance of his seven-year run in the pros.
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Putting that game from Nov. 25, 2004, at the top of the list is the fact that his brother, Thomas Jones, was Chicago's starting running back. Thomas Jones rushed for 46 yards on 14 carries and caught six passes for 48 yards in that matchup as he was overshadowed by his little bro.
"You could not have scripted it any better," Julius Jones said. "Me and my brother always watched the Thanksgiving games growing up. It was either Detroit or Dallas, that was the only games on for such a long time. I don't know how many years we watched those games and thought about playing in it. Here we were in 2004 and both of us had the opportunity to play in that game against each other. The whole family was there. ... It didn't seem like it was real."
Jones scored his first NFL touchdown on a 33-yard rush early in the game and that even elicited a smile from taciturn Cowboys boss Bill Parcells. He added a 4-yard scoring scamper with seven minutes remaining to seal the deal.
"Oh yeah, I'll never forget that game," said Torrin Tucker, who started at right tackle on the offensive line for the Dallas Cowboys. "That was his breakout game. Julius had a hell of a game and made us look good that day."
It marked the first time the Jones siblings had shared the field since they were teammates at Powell Valley High School when the Vikings won the 1995 Group A, Division 2 state championship with a 36-6 win over Northampton in Olney, Virginia. Julius was a freshman and Thomas was a senior then.
What was big brother thinking nine years later on turkey day in Texas?
"I remember pregame I walked over to his side, the Dallas side, and gave him a hug and said, 'Man, this is really happening.'" Thomas Jones said. "Being on the sidelines whenever we were on defense, usually, I'm sitting down the whole game, but I stood up because I was watching him and rooting for him.
"I wanted to win the game but wanted him to do well in the process. He ended up doing well and they ended up blowing us out. It was a win-win across the board for him and it was a win for me. As long as he was doing good, I'm doing good."
Julius had done better than good as a senior at the University of Notre Dame, rushing for 1,268 yards and climbing up draft boards. A few months later the Cowboys chose him with their top selection, which occurred in the second round with the 43rd overall pick.
"The funny thing is that growing up in Virginia, I was a Washington Redskins fan, and I didn't like the Cowboys as a kid," Jones said. "Especially when they were going back-to-back [in the 1990s]. As I got to college and the draft process started to come close, at that point I didn't care where I went as long as I got drafted and got the opportunity to play with somebody."
He went from a love 'em-or-hate 'em team at Notre Dame to a love 'em-or-hate 'em squad in Dallas as far as the fans go.
"I got fortunate to be drafted by Dallas," Jones said. "Leaving Notre Dame is kind of the same thing with a big program, all eyes on you and then you leave there and go to a historic program in the pros - I was very fortunate."
Julius Jones had followed Thomas Jones at Powell Valley and heard the constant comparisons. When he arrived in Dallas, the Cowboys were still looking for the heir apparent to Emmitt Smith, who had departed the franchise following the 2002 season.
Jones got saddled with those high expectations.
"Getting to Dallas and even attempting to follow Emmitt's footsteps was damn near impossible and I understood that going into it that what he did there is something that probably won't be done again," Jones said. "I just embraced the fact I was going to be a running back for Dallas. All the records and stuff, I didn't pay attention to that. I was more focused on this as one of the best opportunities you can get as a running back in the NFL is to get drafted to the Dallas Cowboys. ... It was exciting and a lot of pressure. I never really minded the pressure at all, I welcomed it."
Jones started slow.
He suffered a rib injury in the preseason and then broke his scapula (shoulder blade) in the second game of the regular season against the Cleveland Browns.
"I asked the team not to put me on injured reserve," Jones said. "I didn't want to miss the season. I wanted to rehab it and try to come back. I just worked my tail off just to get back as fast as I could. When you're in the league and you're drafted by a team they are looking for a return on investment. If you're not playing, they're not happy about it, you know what I mean. That was a lonely seven weeks of me and the trainer, I will never forget his name - Britt Brown - busting our tails to get back."
He made his return against the Baltimore Ravens - with a hard-hitting defense featuring the likes of Ray Lewis, Ed Reed and Terrell Suggs - and gained 81 yards on 30 carries.
"I think Parcells threw 30 carries at me just to see where I was," Jones said.
A few days later came the Thanksgiving classic against his brother and in the follow-up to that he ran for 198 yards against the Seahawks.
"I enjoyed playing with Julius," Tucker said. "He could accelerate, stop and go on a dime, had good vision. A fun guy to be around. He and Thomas were good people. Julius always had a smile on his face. He played hurt sometimes, he was tough."
The rookie season of Julius Jones was memorable, but he also took his licks.
"We were playing the Philadelphia Eagles," Jones said. "We were on the goal line. I get the handoff and tried to go over the top and I met Jeremiah Trotter right there in the middle and he knocked the living shit out of me. I didn't care about the ball. The first thing I did was grab my mouth to see if my two front teeth were knocked out. I thought they were gone. I had to check to see if they were there. That was my rookie year and that was a 'Welcome to the NFL' moment."
Jones played with some superstars during his time in Dallas such as Keyshawn Johnson, Terrell Owens, Flozell Adams, Tony Romo and former Elizabethton High School star Jason Witten. He got in prank wars with veteran quarterback Drew Bledsoe.
"One day he got my car keys and put glitter all in the air conditioning vents and had the AC set to blow on high so when I turned the car on, shit blew all over the damn place," Jones said. "I got him back though. I had everybody that worked in the Cowboys facility keep all their shredded documents and I collected them after two weeks of shredding. At lunch one day, I grabbed his keys, took about 15 trash bags full of shredded paper and filled his brand-new Benz until that shit was coming out of the sunroof."
It was all good-natured fun.
"Julius was always cool," Tucker said. "He wasn't no troublemaker. He'd joke and play with you, but he was no guy that you didn't want to be around."
The guy with the Cowboys getting the most attention, of course, was owner Jerry Jones.
That's still the case in 2024.
Loathed by most, Julius Jones doesn't pile on his former boss as some folks tend to do.
"Jerry's my guy, man," Julius Jones said. "I got nothing bad to say about him. I literally saw him every single day. He was at practice every day and we had a good relationship. He gets a lot of grief, but he really does care about his team. I'm not sure if you're going to see any other owner at practice every single day."
The best pro season for Jones came with the Cowboys in 2006 when he rushed for 1,084 yards. Thomas Jones gained 1,210 yards on the ground that season for the Bears as they became the first brothers to surpass the 1K mark on the ground in the same season. That's an unprecedented NFL feat.
The siblings met again on Thanksgiving in 2007 - Thomas had moved on to the New York Jets by then - and Julius once again got the upper hand as Dallas cruised to a 34-3 win. Julius outgained Thomas on the ground (64-40) and in the receiving yards category (26-17).
"We grew up as young boys and were big fans of the NFL," Thomas Jones said. "Two of the running backs we admired were Joe Morris who played for the Giants and Jamie Morris who played for the Redskins. We used to say one day we'll be like them. That's pretty lofty dreamin' to make it to the NFL regardless of what part of the world you were in. We had twin-sized beds next to each other and talked all the time of being in the NFL. For that to actually happen was a blessing."
Julius Jones signed with the Seattle Seahawks following his fourth NFL season and bid adieu to the big D.
"It was kind of dysfunctional [in Seattle]," Jones said. "I personally had three head coaches in three years. plus two offensive coordinators and a couple of different general managers. It was messy."
Seattle didn't make the playoffs during his 2 ½-year tenure with the team.
"I went there originally because of the offensive line they had," Jones said. "I was a free agent in Dallas and obviously, you go where the money is and that's where the best offer was, so I left and went to Seattle. I thought I was in a good place with the O-Line they had, two Pro Bowlers on there and three other guys who were solid. Shaun Alexander was running for 1,500 and 1,600 yards a year and he was leaving, so I was like let me go there.
"One of the Pro Bowlers was a free agent and he went to Minnesota and the other one got hurt and two of the other linemen got hurt. I was thinking I came all the way out here to run in front of these guys and over half of them aren't available. That was tough."
Jones also dealt with some nagging injuries. He played in all 16 games just twice in his seven NFL seasons.
"It's unfortunate, but that's part of the game," Jones said. "Back then I had a lot of high ankle sprains and now they give you six weeks because it's similar to a fracture. Back then we were getting maybe a week, two at max and then you're back in there, not really healed and susceptible to get another one. I sustained a lot of those ... That was just the nature of the business back then though. Me personally, I was hard-headed and didn't want to wait that long anyway."
The Seahawks released Jones midway through the 2010 season and he hooked on with the New Orleans Saints. In a neat happenstance, the Saints played Seattle in the first round of the playoffs that January.
Jones scored two touchdowns and racked up more than 100 all-purpose yards as New Orleans suffered a 41-36 loss. That playoff contest turned out to be the final game of his pro career.
"Many people don't know my last play was a concussion," Jones said. "So, I get the concussion and they take me to the hospital and I'm in the room waiting on the doctor and I hear somebody talking. There was a curtain in the room. I pull the curtain back and it's one of the guys from the Seahawks I know who had a concussion too. That was just weird - I looked over and my former teammate is over there."
There are probably not too many guys that score two TDs in a NFL postseason game and then never play another snap in the league.
"The lockout happened after that and things were really screwed up," Jones said. "There wasn't many free-agency type of situations for me. I made the decision just to shut it down. After seven years that's a long time for a running back. I think I had at least three or four more years but after that last concussion it led me to shut it down and make sure I am healthy for the rest of my life. Realistically, you play football for what seems like an eternity but it's not. You still have the rest of your life to have a family and kids. There are times I look back and I could have played another three or four years, but I didn't regret it."
That was followed by the inevitable soul searching.
"The first couple of years out of the league I think everybody goes through it unless you go straight to a commentating job or something like that," Jones said. "You're used to your whole life being planned out and on an itinerary where you have to be at practice at a certain time, you know when you have off, you know when you have to go back for the start of the next season. Your whole life is planned out and then there's no more itinerary. It took a year or two to figure out what I was going to do without football."
Now 43-years-old, Jones lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with his wife of 17 years, Kelly. He owns a youth sports training facility, a construction management company and is an advisor for the NFL Alumni Business Network. He also has two sons who might follow in their father's footsteps.
"They talked me into letting them play football," Jones said. "There were a couple of stipulations. They weren't going to play running back and I was going to coach them as long as I could, and I did that for three or four years until they got to high school. Now, they're doing their thing."
Julius Jones Jr. is a sophomore wide receiver for the St. Thomas Aquinas High School Raiders and already has offers from the likes of Auburn, Florida State, LSU, Miami, Mississippi, Penn State, West Virginia and plenty of other major programs. He inherited that blazing speed from his pops.
Back in August in a game televised on ESPN against perennial power Bishop Gorman, Julius Jones Jr. had 13 catches for 185 yards and a touchdown in a 29-21 loss.
"I had a lot of phone calls and messages from people who were watching," Julius Jones said. "It was a big moment for my oldest son. He would have loved to have the win, but he had the opportunity to perform on a national stage. Me and their Uncle Thomas have taught them that when your opportunity comes, you have to take advantage of it."
Meanwhile, Andre Jones is a 14-year-old freshman safety for St. Thomas Aquinas.
"He's defense all day," Julius Jones said. "He's kind of like I was at safety at Powell Valley. No regard for anything and whatever's moving, he's hitting."
The team played an important game against American Heritage on Friday night. How does the old man handle watching his kids make plays under the Friday night lights like he used to do?
"It's nerve-racking," Jones said. "That's one reason I didn't want them to play, I wasn't sure if I could handle what comes with football. I'm proud of them and they work their butts off. I usually sit on the side of the other team where nobody knows who I am, and I don't talk to anybody when they're playing. I put a hat on and just sit there and watch the game. I like to watch and give them some advice after that. They ask me what I see. They ask me questions and I give them honest answers. It's good to have that relationship. Just being dad is even better."
Julius Jr. and Andre have been back to Big Stone Gap where it all began for their dad and uncle when they've paid visits to their grandparents - Thomas Sr. and Betty.
"They saw Bullitt Park," Julius Jones said. "It's great for a kid to get to see that. Especially when you're young and having all that room to run and play. They got to see how we grew up. They haven't been back in a while because they are so busy, but they loved it."
Julius Jones jokes that his kids don't think he is cool and that's the way most teenagers feel about their parents. Take our word for it, however, Julius Jones was the personification of cool.
There was something very cool about watching him glide across the turf at Bullitt Park and other stadiums in Southwest Virginia wearing that No. 22 jersey for the Powell Valley Vikings and making it look effortless as he zoomed to another touchdown.
It was very cool watching him establish the single-game rushing record at Notre Dame and becoming an all-purpose all-star for the Fighting Irish.
It was very cool watching him play seven seasons in the NFL and putting on a show on Thanksgiving.
He had a famous big brother but achieved big things on his own.
"He was able to carve out his own lane after me," Thomas Jones said. "Which I'm very proud of him for."
Julius Jones still marvels at the fact that two NFL running backs from the same family represented Big Stone Gap.
"It really is surreal," Jones said. "Two cats from Southwest Virginia, a town of a couple of thousand people making it out of there and reaching a dream you always had. It does seem at times just unbelievable. We're blessed, first of all from the good Lord and we had a lot of help from good coaches, good teachers, good parents, my sisters and our family sacrificing their free time for us. We had a lot of help from a lot of different people."
Now, for a look at high school football moments which occurred this week in history:
Oct. 28, 1960
L.C. Ferrell scored two touchdowns in Grundy's 19-0 win over Richlands. ... Jimmy Slyman scored Tennessee High's only TD in a 13-7 loss to Dobyns-Bennett. ... Coeburn downed Ervinton, 26-6, as Ronnie Arney scored twice.
Oct. 27, 1972
George Heath ran for two touchdowns to highlight Tennessee High's 28-6 drubbing of Dobyns-Bennett. ... Jim Grindstaff and Rick Arms scored for Richlands in a 14-6 triumph over Abingdon. ... Pennington received four touchdowns from Roger Pendergraft in a 30-0 victory over Surgoinsville.
Oct. 24, 1986
Mike Grubb rushed for 135 yards and three touchdowns as Sullivan East snapped a 22-game winless streak with a 35-25 victory over Sullivan North. ... Scott Jones threw for 262 yards and a touchdown, while rushing for two scores in Virginia High's 44-20 victory over Abingdon. Anthony Campbell had seven catches for 204 yards for the Bearcats in the win. ... Mark Cooper threw three touchdown passes in Hurley's 31-0 hammering of Haysi.
This is the third story in a three-part series on the prep, college and NFL career of 1999 Powell Valley High School graduate Julius Jones.
Part 1: Julius Jones had the jets at Powell Valley
Part 2: Irish eyes were on Julius Jones at Notre Dame
Yardage Marks
The career rushing yardage for Julius Jones:
Powell Valley High School: 5,788
University of Notre Dame: 3,018
National Football League: 5,068
Julius Jones by the Numbers
NFL
RUSHING
2004;Dallas Cowboys;8 games;197 carries, 819 yards, 7 Touchdowns
2005;Dallas Cowboys;13 games; 257 carries;993 yards;5 Touchdowns
2006;Dallas Cowboys;16 games;267 carries;1,084 yards;4 Touchdowns
2007;Dallas Cowboys;16 games;164 carries;588 yards;2 Touchdowns
2008;Seattle Seahawks;15 games;158 carries;698 yards;2 Touchdowns
2009;Seattle Seahawks;14 games;177 carries;663 yards;2 Touchdowns
2010;Seattle Seahawks;2 games;12 carries;30 yards;0 Touchdowns
;New Orleans Saints;10 games;48 carries;193 yards;0 Touchdowns
TOTALS;94 games;1,280 carries;5,068 yards;22 Touchdowns
RECEIVING
2004;Dallas Cowboys;17 catches;109 yards;0 Touchdowns
2005;Dallas Cowboys;35 catches;218 yards;0 Touchdowns
2006;Dallas Cowboys;9 catches;142 yards;0 Touchdowns
2007;Dallas Cowboys;23 catches;203 yards;0 Touchdowns
2008;Seattle Seaahawks;14 catches;66 yards;0 Touchdowns
2009;Seattle Seahawks;35 catches;232 yards;2 Touchdowns
2010;Seattle Seahawks;0 catches;0 yards;0 Touchdowns
;New Orleans Saints;17 catches;59 yards;0 Touchdowns
TOTALS;150 catches;1,029 yards;2 Touchdowns
PLAYOFFS
2006;Dallas;1 Game;22 carries;112 yards;0 Touchdowns; 2 catches, 0 yards
2007;Dallas;1 Game;3 carries;8 yards;0 Touchdowns
210;New Orleans;1 Game;15 carries;59 yards;2 Touchdowns;6 catches, 61 yards
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