SAN JOSE, Calif. — James Jones remembers seeing fliers for youth football camps when he was a kid. He also remembers how badly he wanted to go.
"But they all cost money," the Green Bay Packers receiver said Saturday. "Living in homeless shelters, I knew my mom didn't have $150 for me to go to a camp. If she did have $150, it was for us to survive."
Nearly 20 years and one Super Bowl triumph later, there is Jones surveying the field at Gunderson High School in San Jose. More than 200 kids are catching footballs, zigzagging through orange cones or smashing into tackling dummies.
Anyone want to guess the price?
"This is his dream," said his wife, Tamika Jones, after working the sign-in table. "He talked about it even when we were at San Jose State. He used to say, 'If I ever get to the NFL, I'm going to give something back to the community. And it's going to be free."'
The third annual free NTAF Football Camp - the initials stand for "Never Think About Failure" - got a boost this year when its organizer won a Super Bowl. Jones had 50 catches and five touchdowns during the regular season and 11 more catches and two TDs during the playoffs.
Jones, who said he rarely cries, admitted he broke down in tears as confetti rained down after the Packers beat the Steelers in the Super Bowl. "Not because of the game," he said, "but because of the journey."
Jones, 27, lived in homeless shelters from age 5 until the start of high school. There were nights he went to bed hungry. One of his few toys was a football he carried everywhere. "If I took the football out of his hand, he would throw a fit," his mom, Janet, recalled Saturday. "I could take it out when he was asleep, but even that was a struggle."
Jones' rise to NFL fame would be a standard rags-to-riches story - if not for Jones' definition of "riches." His wife can't get him to spend a dime on himself, as Jones splurges mostly on events such as Saturday's camp.
Kids aged 7 to 14 got four hours of instruction from Jones and his 19 assistant coaches. The former San Jose State standout roamed from drill to drill barking out instructions.
When one of the littlest campers lost his shoe, the 6-foot-1, 208-pound Jones knelt down and laced the cleats up tight. When a drill required kids to be whopped with a foam pad as they tried to make a catch, Jones personally handled the whopping. He nailed 'em good, too, sending the boys giggling to the turf. "We're going to rough you up a little bit. We don't need no crybabies," Jones cracked.
Jones later explained that he never wanted his charitable work to end when the ink was dry on the check. Being an inspiration meant being seen.
"You never know how many of these kids are going through what I went through, living in shelters, but I want to show them that it's possible to make it," he said.
"Growing up in a homeless shelter, there were so many times when you ask yourself why. Why do these other kids have new shoes and toys and everything they want and you're in the homeless shelter struggling? You wonder, 'Am I going to be here my whole life?"'
Jones said he designed his camp in hopes of making a lasting impact. Rather than import famous NFL names, he stocked his staff with members of the local football community. Many of them were his former teammates at Gunderson or San Jose State.
The sidelines, meanwhile, looked like a family reunion - James enlisted the help of his parents, sister, in-laws, uncles and cousins. (He and Tamika are expecting their first child, a boy, on Oct. 15.)
Jones is eligible for free agency when the NFL lockout ends. His occasional struggles with drops combined with Green Bay's receiver depth put his return to the Packers in question. But Jones will get a lucrative contract somewhere.
When he does, the kid whose family couldn't afford food - let alone a $150 football camp - might finally make an extravagant purchase for himself. Just don't count on it. His biggest expenditure to date is an unpretentious home in Green Bay.
"It's not anything you're going to see on 'Cribs,"' Tamika joked, referring to the MTV show that celebrates opulent living. "We're very modest people. James always said, 'As long as we have a roof over our heads and food to eat, we're blessed.
http://www.centredaily.com/2011/06/25/2799724/packers-jones-remembers-the-homeless.html#ixzz1QQfjlve0