Former Laker Gets Basketball Kicks in Weekend League

On Sunday nights, a dusty gym in Silver Spring, Md., plays host to a motley collection of twenty-something and thirty-something warriors of the hardwood: congressional aides, policemen, bus drivers, accountants, the paunchy and the sinewy.

There is little great basketball being played in this C-level Montgomery County men’s recreational league. But among the average Joes who gather each week is a former NBA first-round draft choice who is something of a local legend.

Earl Jones, 7 feet, 270 pounds, is surely the best player in the league. He makes jumpers with ease from behind the three-point arc, leads the fast break and swats away opponents’ shots when he feels like it. Periodically, he shows flashes of the skills he displayed in 1982 when he led the University of the District of Columbia Firebirds to an NCAA Division II national championship.

The Los Angeles Lakers were so impressed with the all-America center’s mobility and shooting touch that they made Jones the NBA’s 23rd overall pick in the 1984 draft, adding him to a roster filled with stars such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson.

So what is he doing in a rec league?

“I’m really just out there having fun,” said the 36-year-old Jones. “It’s something to do on a Sunday instead of being cooped up in the house.”

His story is not one of those somber tales about washed-up athletes who can’t handle their fall from stardom. In Jones’ view, he achieved his goal--he made it to the NBA, if even for a moment.

“It wasn’t as long as I thought it would be,” said Jones, who sells cars at Pohanka Oldsmobile in Marlow Heights, Md. “But just getting to the NBA, even if I had played only one game, I would have fulfilled my goals. I don’t really think about it that much, to be honest. I just think that God blessed me to have the ability to play even a short time.”

Jones’ career shows the wisdom of elder athletes whose advice the young guns frequently ignore: Don’t build your whole life around plans to play professional sports. In Jones’ case, his prospects of attaining NBA success were iffy to begin with. Some pro scouts questioned his lack of bulk (he was only 215 pounds on a 7-foot frame when he graduated) and whether the competition he had faced at UDC was adequate preparation for the pros.

But those questions became moot when he broke a bone in his right foot during his rookie season. He was never quite the same after that.

“I was noted as a runner, a jumper, a quick guy,” said Jones. “And I never got that back.”

Jones hung around the league for two seasons, finishing his career with the Milwaukee Bucks in 1986. A few years ago, he was invited to play for the Rockford (Ill.) Lightning of the Continental Basketball Association, one step removed from a return to the NBA.

“He was kind of on the down side of his career,” said Lightning spokesman Bob Boyle. “But he kept playing for the love of the game. His knees were bad, it was kind of hard for him to get up and down the court. . . . “

The Lightning changed coaches, and Jones was released at the beginning of last season. But Boyle said Jones has not been forgotten. “The crowd loved this guy,” said Boyle. “Big Earl was just a fan favorite everywhere he went in town.”

Today, Jones still follows the pro game closely. He would like to be a coach one day. “I’d just like to get my foot in the door somewhere--high school, Division III, junior college--to show them what I can do.”