Jones’ teams played just like he coached

Published 11:43 pm Saturday, June 6, 2009

Carver High School was an all-black basketball power in Atlanta and quickly gained notoriety by putting up NBA-like numbers in its second year as a member of the Georgia High School Association in 1969. That’s the way coach Calvin “Monk” Jones coached.

Buck Rembert was a junior on Carver’s 1968-69 team that averaged a whopping 115 points per game and shellacked Grady High, 172-54, that season.

“It was fastbreak, pressing all the way,” Rembert said Saturday shortly after Jones was inducted into the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame during ceremonies at the Northwest Trade and Convention Center.

“I asked people years later what they did to prepare for us,” Rembert said, “and they told me they just tried to keep us from scoring a hundred points. Everybody on the team played and the last guy was just as good as the first guy. You couldn’t tell the difference. I averaged 18 points that season and Robert Harris once scored 54 points in a game.”

Rembert recalled that during the 172-point game that because of Carver’s press, Grady got the ball past mid-court “probably five times.”

“We were that good on defense,” he said.

Rembert and Roy Stanley were among the family and friends that traveled to Dalton to be with their coach for the induction. The upper ballroom at the trade center was packed as Jones and five other coaches — Jim Hughes, Larry Gaither, George Maloof, Graham Woodell and Cook Holliday — were en-shrined.

When Jones was presented for induction by Marist golf coach Ron Bell, the frail, 81-year-old former coach walked slowly toward the podium and accepted the highest honor of his career.

“I always wanted to be a teacher,” the soft-spoken Jones said. “but I didn’t think I’d ever be the kind of coach I turned out to be. I was definitely surprised (by success).

“The main thing about today is they (GACA members) recognized me. I have been hoping something like this would happen, to show their appreciation for me being a part of all this. And I appreciate the honor that was showered upon me.”

Jones ended his career with an 886-224 record, two state championships, two runner-up finishes, 10 region titles and eight city titles.

Stanley played basketball and football at Carver High and said the basketball team was a duplication of how Jones coached them to play the game.

“We were a reflection of him,” said Stanley, who was team captain on Carver’s 1967 football team that lost to Dalton, 14-12, in the state championship game at Grady Stadium in Atlanta. “Coach Jones was a fiery coach and we followed his lead. We weren’t tall, but we were all good ballhandlers. We were a fastbreak team and played great defense.”

Stanley, the first black all-state player in Georgia after integration, went on to play football at West Virginia University under coach Bobby Bowden.

In 1967, Carver went 31-1 and won the first integrated state Class 2A championship sponsored by GHSA.

“But (the 1969) bunch was the best team I ever had,” Jones said.

Bell told the audience that he and Jones “go back a long way.”

“Coach Jones is a worthy recipient of this honor,” Bell said. “He was an athlete at Booker T. Washington High School and attended Tuskegee College, Atlanta University and the University of Georgia. His first job after college was in 1958 back at Booker T. Washington as the girls basketball coach. In two years, he had a record of 33-11.

The next year he coached the boys team and won the last city championship in the 1965-66 school year. Carver won the state championship in 1967 and that was, which didn’t have a gym to practice in, was one the best teams in the country.”