Jones Earns Stripes With Kids

[The Entertainer]

[quote][size=3][b]Jones Earns Stripes With Kids[/b]
Bengals linebacker visits school and imparts his wisdom[/size]
BY SHANNON RUSSELL | SRUSSELL@ENQUIRER.COM


Nine-year-old Ian Clark bounded onto the family couch, peered out the front window and shrieked with glee. "He's here! He's here!"

He was Bengals linebacker and special teams captain Dhani Jones, Ian's special guest in the annual Take a Player to School event presented by the NFL and the JCPenney Afterschool Program.

The eighth-year NFL player arrived Tuesday morning in one of two Lincoln Town Cars that escorted Ian and his family to Kenton Elementary School in Independence.

Minutes before Jones rolled up the Clarks' gravel driveway, a dozen friends and family members exchanged "Can-you-believe-this-is-happening?" glances as Ian - clad in a Jones jersey and Bengals hat - nervously zipped around the living room.

"I only got a little bit of sleep," he confessed. "Like four hours. I woke up at 5 a.m. and had to stay up because I was so excited."

And with good reason. More than 100,000 kids between 6 and 13 registered online and in JCPenney stores for the contest, which has NFL players promote after-school programs for academic, physical and social development.

Ian was one of 34 winners nationwide.

"I was freaking out when I found out," Ian said, duplicating his shocked scream. "I'm so glad I got a linebacker to take to school."

Jones' 8:42 a.m. arrival was about the only thing that silenced the excited fourth-grader.

"Which one's Ian?" Jones asked as he walked through the front door. Ian meekly raised his hand.

Ten minutes later, Ian was chatting about his pets, showing Jones his room and cramming down breakfast before the 2-mile drive to school. Jones took a plate of scrambled eggs and six sausage links for the road.

After arriving at Kenton Elementary, they met with principal Pat Goetz, signed autographs ("Your autograph looks a lot better than mine," Jones told a beaming Ian) and headed up to Ian's homeroom. They discussed cursive writing along the way.

The awe Ian's family felt for Jones was replicated in Marcie Kelly's fourth-grade room. Kids decked out in Bengals garb clapped, wide-eyed, as Ian introduced the player. But they loosened up as they asked Jones pre-written questions.

Do you ever get nervous?

"In football games or right now?" Jones said, laughing. "I get nervous. You want to win so bad, you don't want to mess up. If you don't get nervous you're doing something wrong. Do you guys get nervous for tests? I get nervous for tests all the time. Young or old, big or small, everybody gets nervous."

Do you like to play linebacker?

"I love to play linebacker. All you get to do is hit people all day," Jones said, drawing laughter.

Where are you from?

"I was born in California. Heard about the fires that have been going on? My house is like right in the middle of it. It was in the lucky mile that stayed out of trouble."

Jones asked the students what after-school programs they're part of and said he had participated in several. He rode his bike everywhere as a kid and still does - he doesn't have a car.

The entire group attended a pep rally in the gym, where a thunderous "Who Dey" chant awaited.

With a microphone in hand, Jones talked up the benefits of being active, doing homework and staying in school. He led five fitness activities as part of the NFL's Play 60 campaign, which urges kids to exercise for 60 minutes daily.

The Michigan grad teased Ohio State fans, playfully encouraged kids to do exercises on their parents' beds and ended the session by signing footballs. He handed one to Ian. The boy clutched it.

"I thought everything was fun and exciting," Ian said. "I think (Jones) is really cool and nice and respectful."[/quote]




[url="http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071114/SPT02/711140402/1066/SPT"]Enquirer.com[/url]

[The Entertainer]

[quote][size=3][b]Man for all reasons [/b][/size]
By GEOFF HOBSON
November 13, 2007
10:55 p.m.


Once known as the NFL's "Renaissance Man," Dhani Jones, who has taken a class from Al Gore and ribbing from Stephen Colbert, has opted for a more pedestrian role in Cincinnati as he tries to rewrite the book on himself.

He's become one of those invisible yet invaluable 9-to-5 handymen plucked from the NFL yellow pages known as the waiver wire and charged with helping plug the leaks of a roster spewing injury. Sleeping in a hotel but living at Paul Brown Stadium, spurning his car for a Fixie, eschewing the mike to get to know the mike backer, Jones has immersed himself in football and little else since arriving from the San Diego beaches 55 days ago.

Yet on Tuesday Jones briefly left the team auditorium, where he has discovered that listening to his music in stereo makes watching tape much more enjoyable.

He took a rare spin in the community, leading 300 students in calisthenics at Kenton Elementary School in the morning and in the afternoon joining several teammates as celebrity waiters at a luncheon to raise money for the fight against cystic fibrosis.

In between, he pondered what he calls this "extra year," of his eight in the NFL.

"When I was in New York or Philadelphia, I didn't stay in the building that much," he said. "In some respects people saw a knock on me as someone that didn't understand or pay attention or involve himself too much in the game of football.

"Yeah, I think that was a misunderstanding,' Jones said. "But if that's what people thought they saw, then maybe there was some truth to it. You self-scout and you try to make yourself better."

Darrin Simmons, the Bengals special teams coach, never met that guy. The linebacker that played on Super Bowl teams with the Giants and Eagles while going network on ESPN and the NFL channel, leading the Philadelphia Pops once as a guest conductor, and playing the wash bucket bass in the New York subways.

All he knows is that Jones, still hurting from the release by the Saints, showed up five days before the third game of the season and stabilized the special teams with such maturity and moxie that it took him just three weeks to be named captain.

This past Sunday in Baltimore Jones volunteered to again play on all four kicking teams even though the backer roulette continued and he was forced to start on the weak side.

"I took him off a couple and still kept him covering punts and kicks but he told me he needed his own personal water boy," Simmons said. "That was just a huge effort. He's been the exact opposite (of the knock). He's been attentive to detail. He's always asking questions trying to get better. He's been active, he's been vocal. We feel fortunate to have him."

So did Pat Goetz and Ed Clark. Goetz, the principal at Kenton in Independence Ky., and Clark, the dad of fourth-grader Ian Clark, each hosted Jones Tuesday as part of the NFL's "Take a Player to School" program.

Jones showed up at Ian's home on Independence Road in a limo and gratefully accepted a Gatorade from Ed that the NFL people suggested might be part a breakfast that would make the player feel a little more comfortable.

But Jones didn't need that to feel at home. Here's a guy who in 2002 was the Giants' nominee for NFL Man of the Year and in 2004 was the Eagles' Community Hero.

Within minutes he was in Ian's room getting the tour of the nerf basketball hoop and signing autographs for some of Ian's buddies before they had had to run, sharing Ed's sausage and eggs on the ride to school.

"A little hectic. There's only one artery to the school and there's a lot of traffic,' said Ed Clark, who took the day off from his job in quality control at Carl Zeiss Vision in Hebron, Ky. "The guy is tremendous. Pleasant, friendly. I was glad back when we did sign him."

That is no throwaway line because the Clarks are serious Bengals fans. They went to training camp this year and while his son showed up Tuesday draped in a life-sized Jones 57 jersey, Dad arrived wearing the No. 91 of linebacker Robert Geathers instead of your basic offensive 9s, 85s, 32s and 84s.

Everyone was wearing orange Tuesday, including Goetz, still shaking her head after saying good-bye to Jones and getting the school ready for lunch. She watched Jones direct all the kids out of the bleachers so they could line up for cals as part of the lesson in getting exercise for an hour.

"I thought it was," said Goetz when asked if she thought it was impressive. "When he said, 'I could be principal, too,' I was saying, 'Yeah buddy, you could.'

"We've had a lot of speakers come in. Our firemen do a great presentation every year,' Goetz said. "He's probably the most engaging speaker we've had."

In between cracking several jokes on how his alma mater of Michigan is going to beat Ohio State this Saturday, Jones led them in 10 jumping jacks, 10 toe touches ("All The Way Back"), five tuck jumps and 12 sit-ups.

Then after making sure he got all of Ian's family in the pictures, motioning his step parents into the frame, he left to do his own exercises at the stadium.

On Mondays, he's there from 11 to 4.

On Tuesdays, noon to 3 and then 6-8:30 or 9 at night.

On Wednesdays and Thursday, 7:15 a.m.-8 p.m.

On Friday, it's 8-3 p.m.

"What a great sound system in a theater setting," said Jones, who once broke up a nightly video session by watching "Top Gun." "What better way to watch film? Some guys don't watch film because there's no background noise. They don't like studying because there's nothing to go along with it."

And since Jones' passion for music is as varied as a NFL playbook, he may end up studying stunts to Sam Cooke or routes to reggae (Morgan Heritage is his current favorite) or fire zones to the Jackson Five.

"I'm killing three birds with one stone," Jones said. "I'm getting my music, my film study and I'm defeating through a non-aggressive style the knock that maybe I'm not into football as much as I should be."

It's not that Jones has given up his gigs. He'll eventually go back to playing the alto saxophone and wash bucket bass as well as dabble with the piano. And while he does do a spot on Tuesdays with Fox Radio, he's staying away from his old haunts of ESPN and the NFL Network.

"I just don't want do it right now. I'm trying to catch up to what all these guys were doing the offseason and training camp," Jones said.

"I just got here. Why would you try to impress yourself on a city that doesn't know you?" he asked. "They don't even know if you can play football. So why not show them that you can play football and see how they respond to you?"

But Jones doesn't exactly get out enough to commission a focus group poll. He's content to ride his fixed-gear bicycle around town, a freewheeling contraption that once dominated racing at velodromes, and he'll think nothing about hanging out at the University of Cincinnati's bike shop, or riding across the People Bridge, or stopping by Newport on the Levee, or heading to what he calls the waterfront.

"I miss San Diego," said Jones, who has a beach home there as well as what he calls a one-room shack on the New Jersey Shore. "But Cincinnati has a nice waterfront."

And Jones notices such things. He is a member of The Climate Project, and was invited to Nashville, Tenn., to be trained by Gore in what has been described as "an intensive tutorial about issues surrounding global warming."

"He taught the class and I had lunch and dinner with him," Jones said. "Good guy. Smart guy. A guy ahead of the curve on a lot of things. It was a great opportunity to learn from a guy that has been a pioneer on the issue. I've got to finish the course up over the offseason so I can go and give my five presentations (to various organizations).

"Something is wrong when it's almost 60, 70 degrees in December," Jones said. "And 115 in August."

It's still too early for Jones to think about next year, although there are signs the Bengals would like him back. He's planning for one future event, though. He bid on and won two items during the CF luncheon, one of which was a stay at an Arizona resort during Super Bowl week.

"If we're in it, then it will be for my family," Jones said. "It's a win-win."

Which, at the moment, seems to be what the Bengals are doing with Jones.

Whether he's The Renaissance Man or Handyman.[/quote]




[url="http://www.bengals.com/news/news.asp?story_id=6443"]http://www.bengals.com/news/news.asp?story_id=6443[/url]

[DanvilleBengal]

Dhani sounds like a cool guy to hang with......lets hope that he continues to get confortable with the defense.

[Khatmandude]

[quote name='DanvilleBengal' post='593191' date='Nov 14 2007, 04:53 PM'][b]Dhani sounds like a cool guy to hang with......[/b]lets hope that he continues to get confortable with the defense.[/quote]

Do you also like pigeons pooping on you?

[H.B. Bengal]

I guess the "Rennaissance man" never read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values".

He would have a different setting for watching film if he did.

[globetrotter]

[quote name='H.B. Bengal' post='593202' date='Nov 14 2007, 03:57 PM']I guess the "Rennaissance man" never read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values".

He would have a different setting for watching film if he did.[/quote]

He needs to be resigned ASAP. He is good for the franchise in so many ways

[-GoBengals-]

[quote name='IKOTA' post='593197' date='Nov 14 2007, 02:50 PM']Do you also like pigeons pooping on you?[/quote]


thats really none of your concern...

[B.A.B.]

Haha. Finally someone Dhani can connect with. Dude is wierd on so many different levels, but it's good to hear something like this. He's a good guy.

[mongo]

I like Dhani. He's an eccentric, but I like him. I hope he and his bow ties stay in town for a few more years.

[claptonrocks]

[quote name='mongo' post='593442' date='Nov 15 2007, 07:40 AM']I like Dhani. He's an eccentric, but I like him. I hope he and his bow ties stay in town for a few more years.[/quote]

As a backup and special teamer....

[mongo]

[quote name='claptonrocks' post='593449' date='Nov 15 2007, 08:04 AM']As a backup and special teamer....[/quote]


correct