Loran Smith: UGA lineman's mom pushed him to be better

— Those who should know give Ben Jones high marks as a prospect for Sunday employment in the NFL. If he realizes his lifelong ambition, there will be many reasons noted for his reaching his goal.

For starters, the University of Georgia center has adequate physical dimensions — he’s 6-foot-2, 300 pounds — and good footwork, which can enhance the balance he needs to thwart the bull rushes of opposing linemen. Further, he has the quickness to make the cutoff and “reach” blocks, but there is more. His work ethic has been exemplary, his attitude is selfless as a consummate team player and his competitive instincts motivate him to fight and persevere.

Plus, he has had the advantage of propitious training with Southeastern Conference competition and schooling under Stacy Searels, who is regarded by his peers as a teacher nonpareil.

However, all of that might not be of significance if it weren’t for his mother, Vickie. The rock of the family, she took a pragmatic approach to life with Ben and his older brother, Clay, when their father, Stephen Jones, tragically lost his life in a helicopter accident when Ben was 10.

The grief was overwhelming because of the togetherness spawned by Ben’s father, but life goes on. You can let tragedy and sorrow compromise your opportunity, or you can make the best of a bad situation. That is where Vickie’s influence set a tone of moving on. Stephen had been the boys’ youth coach, so she took up where he left off.

“Have you done your lifting today?” she would often ask Ben and Clay.

Or she might say, “Run down and get the mail.” Since the family lived on a 500-acre farm and their home was located a mile from the road, the command to “run down and get the mail” was not fulfilled quickly or easily. Moreover, when Vickie said “run,” she meant exactly that. Family couriers were not allowed to walk.

Bringing them home from team practices, she might make the turn off the main road and say, “You could probably use a little more work. Why don’t you run home from here?”

She commanded respect from her sons, and there never was a time when they resisted her additional work admonitions. They knew she wanted the best for them, and they knew that it was what their dad would have wanted and expected.

Searels might be amused, perhaps chagrined, if he knew that raising his voice on the practice field is not disconcerting to the Bulldogs starting center.

“I’d rather have him yelling at me,” Ben said with a laugh, “than my mother.”

The diplomatic Ben then paid tribute to his line coach, who constantly applies pressure in the direction of second effort.

“He is an excellent teacher, and I see in him the same qualities I saw in my dad,” Jones said. “It has to be good for my future to play under a coach like him.”

The Jones farm, in addition to offering the seclusion Ben and Clay preferred, offered outdoor opportunity they found exhilarating. When they weren’t practicing for their various high school teams, they could be found bass fishing in the property’s 10-acre lake or spending time following a bird dog and knocking down a few quail on a chilly winter day.

Ben’s story is not without a bit of intrigue in that he grew up in Centerville, Ala., 30 miles from Tuscaloosa. Looking east to Athens for the college football experience is not such an incongruous decision if you look into his past, though.

It began with his father’s influence. Stephen Jones played at Thomas County Central High School and graduated from the Georgia. That gave Ben an emotional link that made him secure enough to cross the state line for further schooling.

The family farm will always have an allure for Ben and Clay, who is a minor league first baseman in the Detroit Tigers system. When Ben was a sophomore in high school, Clay was the quarterback.

“He is working hard to make it to the big leagues,” Ben said with the respect of brotherly love.

Like his younger brother, Clay knows something about positive parental influence and the value of an unrelenting work ethic.

Loran Smith is a contributing columnist for The Daily Citizen. You can write to him at loransmith@sports.uga.edu.

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