Deacon Jones

Deacon Jones

Jones in a 1971 promotional photo for his guest appearance on The Brady Bunch
No. 75
Position:	Defensive end
Personal information
Date of birth:	(1938-12-09)December 9, 1938
Place of birth:	Eatonville, Florida, U.S.
Date of death:	June 3, 2013(2013-06-03) (aged 74)
Place of death:	Anaheim Hills, California, U.S.
Height:	6 ft 5 in (1.96 m)
Weight:	265 lb (120 kg)
Career information
High school:	Eatonville (FL) Hungerford
College:	Mississippi Valley State
NFL Draft:	1961 / Round: 14 / Pick: 186
Career history
Los Angeles Rams (1961–1971) San Diego Chargers (1972–1973) Washington Redskins (1974)
Career highlights and awards
8× Pro Bowl (1964–1970, 1972) 3× Second-team All-Pro (1964, 1970, 1972) 5× First-team All-Pro (1965–1969) 2× NFL Defensive Player of the Year (1967, 1968) NFL 75th Anniversary All-Time Team NFL 1960s All-Decade Team Los Angeles Rams No. 75 retired
Career NFL statistics
Interceptions: 2 Games played: 191 Player stats at NFL.com
Pro Football Hall of Fame

David D. "Deacon" Jones (December 9, 1938 – June 3, 2013) was an American football defensive end in the National Football League (NFL) for the Los Angeles Rams, San Diego Chargers, and the Washington Redskins. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1980.

Jones specialized in quarterback "sacks", a term which he coined. Nicknamed "the Secretary of Defense", Jones is considered one of the greatest defensive players ever. The Los Angeles Times called Jones "most valuable Ram of all time," and former Redskins head coach George Allen called him the "greatest defensive end of modern football".

Jones was born in Eatonville, Florida, and lived in a four-bedroom house with his family of ten. Jones attended Hungerford High School, where he played football, baseball, and basketball. During high school, Jones developed a lump in his thigh and learned that it was a tumor; he had surgery to remove it.

When he was 14 years old, he witnessed a carload of white teenagers laughingly hit an elderly black church woman with a watermelon. The woman died days later from the injury, and there was never a police investigation. "Unlike many black people then, I was determined not to be what society said I was," Jones later recounted. "Thank God I had the ability to play a violent game like football. It gave me an outlet for the anger in my heart."

Jones' college football career consisted of a year at South Carolina State University in 1958, followed by a year of inactivity in 1959 and a final season at Mississippi Vocational College in 1960.