About his feelings for Hawaii, JJ said:
"Once it's in your blood, it's always in your blood." (HA)
Excited to being back in Hawaii, JJ said:
"It's exciting to come back. I'm excited that I'm going to see a lot of friends and people who mean a lot to me. That's the thing I miss the most — my friends." (HA)
JJ added that he also misses:
"the North Shore." (HA)
"I miss the North Shore." (HA)
HA Note: "The day after every UH home game, Jones would ride his Harley-Davidson, painted in the Warriors' dark green, around the island."
HA Note: "Jones donated the motorcycle to Na Koa, the UH football booster club, as an auction item. He said he might sell his O'ahu condos."
About how he might sell his O'ahu condos, JJ said:
"I'm going to keep the one in Kona." (HA)
HA Note: "He first visited the Big Island in 1975, when UH played a spring game in Hilo. Jones was a quarterback. He returned in the 1980s, soon after the Mauna Lani Golf Course opened."
About his love for the Big Island, JJ said:
"I was just blown away. The peacefulness of the Big Island. Man, it was just something else." (HA)
About finding a paradise about 15 miles from Kona, JJ said:
"Hokuli'a is the most spiritual place to me. It's more laid-back than anywhere I've been. When (football) is all over, that's where I'm going to make my home. I'm going to live in Hawai'i." (HA)
HA Note: "After the Warriors' 2006 season, there was an opportunity to return to the National Football League, where he had been a head coach with the Atlanta Falcons and San Diego Chargers. At the same time, the Warriors' star quarterback, Colt Brennan, was contemplating whether to apply for the 2007 NFL draft or return to UH for his senior season. The NFL deadline was Jan. 17. At one point, Brennan posed the what-if question to Jones."
About how he told Colt not to worry about his leaving for the NFL if Colt decided to stay at UH, JJ said:
"Colt was worried I would leave after he made his decision to come back (to UH). I said, 'Look, you make your decision. I'll give you my word, if you haven't read about me leaving before the 17th, and you decide to come back, I won't leave. I'll coach your senior season.' " (HA)
HA Note: "In an emotional news conference Jan. 17, 2007, Brennan announced he would return to UH for his senior season. Soon after, agent Leigh Steinberg called UH athletic director Herman Frazier to set up a meeting to discuss a contract extension for Jones, who was entering the final season of a five-year contract."
About telling HF that he'd work on a contract extension for JJ before the 2007 season but they didn't want to negotiate the extension during the season, Leigh Steinberg said:
"I told Herman before the '07 season, I would entertain speaking with him about extending my contrac. Nothing had been done. I said, 'If you don't extend it by the time we go to training camp (in August), then I don't want to deal with it during camp, and I don't want to see (negotiations) in the paper while we're trying to win football games.' " (HA)
About the contract extension negotiations, JJ told HF:
"If we can get something done, something I can live with before we go to training camp in August I would consider it." (HA)
About how UH *never* initiated contract talks before the start of Fall camp, JJ said:
"I wasn't hurt by it; I was disappointed. If he had come to me in May or June, I probably would have extended my contract, and we would have worked out something that would have been workable for the school and workable for me." (HA)
HA Note: "After that, Jones realized that "2007 would be my last season" at UH."
HA Note: "The problems with UH's athletic facilities had circulated nationally. In 2006, the players had complained there was no soap in the locker-room showers. Cooke Field was condemned after the turf had been stripped away. But because the Warriors were successful — 11-3 in 2006, 12-1 in 2007 — with limited resources, few changes were planned."
About how they could not sustain success without big changes at UH, JJ said:
"To sustain success (under the conditions) would be hard to do. We needed to have things. We needed change. I don't think those things were going to happen if I stayed. When I got here in '99, I felt if we won, things would change. The bottom line is everybody is hurting. Everybody needs money." (HA)
HA Note: "After the Jan. 1 Sugar Bowl, SMU made a formal offer: $2 million a year for five years. Jones' contract — which was increased from $320,000 annually in the first four UH seasons — paid about $800,000 a year. It was then that UH initiated contract talks. The first offer, from Frazier, was $1.1 million annually. After that, UH President David McClain and Manoa chancellor Virginia Hinshaw took over as point negotiators, increasing the offer to $1.3 million annually, then $1.5 million a year, then $1.7 million. But Jones said he felt UH's offers were more than the school could afford. The stakes were considerably higher than they were before the 2007 season, when he would have been happy to sign an extension for much less."
About how he didn't want to feel bad about taking UH's contract offer, JJ said:
"I worked all my life to make a good living. I didn't want to feel bad that I was going to make a lot of money in my next contract. The people of Hawai'i have a lot of needs at the school. For me to be making close to $2 million, it didn't seem fair, and I didn't want to feel bad about that. With all of the needs we had (at UH), all of the things that had to be done, in my own mind, I didn't want to be unhappy about being successful." (HA)
About how he had second thoughts the night before they were going to announce his deal with SMU, JJ told Steinberg:
"I can't pull the trigger. Leigh's eyes got huge. We had been in negotiations for three days, and we had finally gotten it done, and I told him, 'I can't do this.' " (HA)
That night JJ then had telephone conversations with:
"some friends who were very close to me. When I woke up the next morning. I felt this is what God wanted me to do, what I needed to do with my life." (HA)
About JJ took the SMU job, UH President McClain said in a news release:
"I also want to apologize to our fans and all of Hawai'i for matters getting to this stage in the first place. Exceptional performance deserves exceptional recognition, and your university was slow to step up." (HA)
HA Note: "The next day, UH and Frazier parted ways. Since then, Cooke Field, now known as Ching Athletic Complex, has a new artificial turf. The new football coaches' offices will be completed in a few months. And the football recruiting budget has more than doubled."
About the positive changes made at UH since he left, JJ said:
"Those things wouldn't have happened if we stayed." (HA)
JJ said that SMU is 2 years away from:
"being where we were in Hawai'i, with enough bullets and ammo to play the game at the level to be a championship team." (HA)
HA Note: "His son, June Jones IV, is an offensive lineman on a high school team that won a Texas state football title. He bought a home in a Dallas suburb."
Praising Dallas, JJ said:
"Dallas is a great city, one of the best on the continent. The people here are so hospitable. The Texas people have a lot of aloha spirit. They don't call it aloha. They call it Texas hospitality. It's very similar to Hawai'i. The people here are outgoing, very giving, very helpful." (HA)
HA Note: "One of Jones' regrets is he is too emotional to offer face-to-face farewells. He sent e-mails to close friends to announce he was leaving Hawai'i. His parting news conference was on the Big Island."
About how it is hard for him to say goodbye face-to-face, JJ said:
"It's hard. I get attached to people, friends. I tell people, 'It's not about the game; it's about the people you work with, the people you coach.' That's what it's all about. Because I'm that way, I've become very attached, especially with people in Hawai'i, and, I guess, sensitive emotionally. I think I'm way too emotional for a guy. I am that way. I've always been that way." (HA)
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