South Alabama coach likes the direction of his program

When Joey Jones graduated from the University of Alabama with a degree in business administration there were any number of safe, sensible pursuits he could have undertaken in and around his Mobile, Ala., hometown.

For instance, he could have become a public relations official for BP in the Gulf of Mexico. Or he might have been the guy who drops the 12-foot diameter MoonPie from atop a building in downtown Mobile on New Year’s Eve. Perhaps, he could have even run a Yummy Korean B-B-Q franchise there for his former Crimson Tide football road roommate, Peter Kim.

Instead, Jones became an ambitious, strictly-from-scratch launcher of college football programs in a state where Alabama and Auburn have the market well cornered.

It is the latest installment of this curious avocation that brings Jones to Aloha Stadium to play the University of Hawaii on Saturday night as the head coach of the fledgling, four-year old South Alabama football team.

Jones began the Division III Birmingham Southern football program from the ground up in 2006 and liked the challenge so much he signed on for a bigger, more demanding one at South Alabama in 2008.

South Alabama, a regional baseball power that had never fielded a football team, agreed to start one for 2009 after its students voted a $150-per-semester athletic fee upon themselves.  

This year, the Jaguars, who have taken few baby steps in going from playing Hargrave Military, Louisburg and Fork Union to North Carolina State and nationally ranked Mississippi State, took the big leap, transitioning into the Football Bowl Subdivision membership.

USA has the lumps — a 2-10 record (1-7 Sun Belt Conference) and a five-game losing streak — to show for its ambition. But the Jaguars also have the encouragement that comes from playing established Sun Belt contenders Middle Tennessee (8-3), Arkansas State (8-3) and Louisiana-Monroe (8-4) to eight-points-or-less decisions.

“It has, obviously, been difficult, going from nothing to a full Division I schedule in our fourth year, but we feel like we’ve been very competitive in our first year in the Sun Belt, so we feel like we have made some great progress,” Jones said. “We feel like we could have won six or seven games this year, but understand it is a process,” Jones said.

The all-in, faster-the-better approach fits.

“He was the fastest guy on our team (in the early 1980s) at Alabama,” said Kim, a Honolulu businessman, who kicked for the Tide after transferring from UH. “He was tough and gritty, too. In fact, he was the only guy I ever saw Coach (Paul “Bear”) Bryant give a day off from practice. That was because Joey was our receiver, kick returner, gunner on the punt team … everything.”

Little has come easy for the Jaguars this year, including traveling to Honolulu on Wednesday. To get here economically on UH’s dime, the Jaguars split into three groups, departing from Mobile to Pensacola, Fla., New Orleans or Houston to begin the nearly 4,500-mile trek.

“I like a challenge and I like building things,” Jones said. “I really do. But I don’t know that I’d want to attempt to do it all again.”

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Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.