Building on Brilliance : Alemany Back to Quit Football in Favor of Engineering

Bert Jones was having the game of his life.

The Alemany High running back had rushed for 288 yards on 39 carries in a season-ending game against Crespi. The 5-11, 175-pound senior had crossed the goal line five times for the Indians.

With about two minutes left, Jones ran for the 39th time.

“I went down,” Jones remembered, “and somebody was on top of me. I was pretty tired, so I took my time getting up.”

An official, thinking Jones had injured himself, called time. That forced Jones to the sideline.

The Indians really didn’t need Jones’ services the rest of that evening. They had a 35-19 victory already locked up.

As the clock ticked down, however, Jones learned that he was close to the 300 yards. He asked Coach Enrique Lopez if he could re-enter the game.

A little more than a minute remained when Jones returned. On a third-down play, he picked up five yards and a first down.

But the Indians were guilty of a penalty. The down was replayed. Alemany failed to get the necessary yardage and had to punt.

Crespi ran out the clock and Jones’ chances for 300 yards.

The incident was Jones’ senior season in capsule form: high expectations, occasional brilliance and ultimate frustration.

“He was going to be one of the best running backs in California,” Lopez said.

Injuries spoiled that notion--and his chance for a scholarship. When Jones plays in the Daily News All-Star football game Thursday night, it will be his last game. He is one of the starting running backs on the East team that takes on the West at Pierce College.

Jones will study engineering at Pierce in the fall--and hopes to move on to UCLA in a couple of years. But his football career, Jones said, is over after Thursday.

“Ever since he was a freshman,” Lopez said, “I was looking for him to have a great senior season.”

Jones was the No. 1 tailback on Alemany’s freshman team in 1981. He saw limited action on the varsity team as a sophomore, then gained about 600 yards on the ground as a junior.

“My goal,” Jones said, “was to get more than 1,000 yards my last year.” He was to fall short, finishing with 642.

He pulled a groin muscle in August. According to Lopez, he was at 90% strength when the Indians opened the season against St. Genevieve. He ran for 157 yards in a 17-7 win.

The next week in a 17-0 win over Chaminade, Jones rambled for more than 100 yards. He was establishing himself as one of the Valley’s top backs.

In the season’s third game against Hart, Jones injured his right shoulder.

“I kept hitting their middle linebacker,” Jones said, “and one time the shoulder just started hurting.”

Lopez limited Jones’ play in that game, but with time running out in the first half he inserted him at the tailback position.

“We were at our 16-yard line,” Lopez said, “and I told the guys that we were gonna have Bert run a 32 trap. I said to Bert, ‘Take it all the way.’ ”

On the last play of the half, Jones went 52 yards and came within one tackler of a touchdown. Hart went on to win, 21-16.

The shoulder injury forced Jones to miss the St. Paul game, a 14-10 Alemany loss. When Jones returned the following week against Servite, he reinjured the shoulder.

He did not return to action until the eighth week of the season. And when he played against St. John Bosco, it was as an outside linebacker, not as a running back.

The shoulder was still bothering Jones and Lopez didn’t want him to take the hits to which a running back is subjected.

“We couldn’t take the risk of him hurting the shoulder again,” Lopez said.

After winning their first two games, the Indians lost their next seven.

“Without Bert,” Lopez said, “we had to change our offense. We had to go from the I-back formation to the one-back formation. We just didn’t have the power back.”

What the Indians did have was one anxious running back on the sideline.

“It was frustrating when I got hurt,” Jones said. “At some of the games, I’d be watching the other teams and thinking, ‘I could have done real well against them.’ ”

But he couldn’t. And no one was more disheartened than Lopez.

“It was a big disappointment for him,” Lopez said. “It was one of my biggest disappointments, too.”

In the season’s ninth game, a 28-0 loss to Loyola, Jones again suited up at outside linebacker. Although he played just two games at the position, he was named to the all-league second team.

Then came the finale against Crespi.

Since it was Jones’ last game at Alemany, Lopez decided to start him as a tailback. The result was his 288-yard game against the Celts.

“Bert outdid himself that night,” Lopez said.

Even though Crespi finished 0-9-1, Jones’ performance against the Celts left Lopez wondering what could have been.

“He would have been a major college recruit,” the coach said.

But Jones didn’t draw the attention of the universities. And he isn’t looking at the game Thursday as a chance to impress a scout into giving him a scholarship.

If that should happen--Lopez called it a “long shot”--Jones said he would still attend Pierce just to study.

Whatever Jones decides, he has a booster in Lopez.

“Bert is one of those guys I’d love to see succeed,” Lopez said. “He’s the kind of guy I always use as an example on and off the field. I tell the younger kids, ‘That is who I’d like you to act like, Bert Jones.’ ”