Football, Wrestling
Favorite athlete: JJ Watt
Favorite team: Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: Winning the Conference Championship in both football and wrestling. And beating Pennridge twice in football.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Pulling my hamstring and dropping on the field and watching it on film.
Music on iPod: Needtobreathe, Country
Future plans: Go to college.
Words to live by: “Love God, Love people.”
One goal before turning 30: Getting a good job.
One thing people don’t know about me: I like to play the drums.
By GORDON GLANTZ
It is no wonder that Micah Jones wants to become a state trooper.
As his coaches at Quakertown will be first in line to convey, the two-sport standout – and Univest Male Athlete of the Week – is one of the good guys in a world where the bad guys get the headlines.
“Such a great young man - he never uses foul language and is an excellent role model,” said wrestling coach Kurt Handel. “Micah leads by example, and the kids look up to him. He has a very jovial personality and always is smiling.”
Added football coach George Banas: “Micah has a personality that just makes you want to be around him because he makes you laugh and enjoy life.”
Jones’ background story is all the more intriguing because he is the eighth of nine children – and third of three boys -- but became the first in the family to seriously pursue organized, competitive sports when he went out for football and wrestling in seventh grade.
“I always wanted to play football,” explained Jones, whose younger sister, Mackenzie, followed his sports-blazed trail and is a freshman field hockey player at Quakertown. “My friends told me I should try wrestling because I was good at it, with different moves and stuff.”
In wrestling, it has been a slow and steady climb to prominence for Jones, who was 6-25 as a freshman but was undaunted.
Following a sophomore football season where he started on the offensive line, Jones carried over the success to the mat, going 21-11. Last year, at 25-13, he qualified for districts.
This year, over the holidays, he grappled his way onto the wrestling map with a head-turning performance at the prestigious Bethlehem Holiday Tournament, placing fourth and even surprising himself.
“I never placed before,” said Jones, who said that he often dealt with an issue where his “knees would come out” at inopportune times earlier in his wrestling career. “It’s a good tournament to place at, so doing that well was nice. It was a confidence boost.”
The feat was even more impressive given that it came a little more than three weeks after the end of a stellar season on the football field.
Jones – in his typical modest style – was downplaying the aspect of not having time to shift gears, citing nagging lower back injuries from football as a bigger preparation concern.
“It wasn’t too bad,” he said. “I have been doing it the last four years.”
Handel, though, was impressed by the outing that moved Jones to 15-5 in his first 20 matches of the season.
“It is ranked one of the toughest tournaments in the nation,” said Handel. “This was quite an accomplishment, because he had only practiced three weeks since finishing the football season.”
And what a football season it was.
Coming into his own as a defensive end, Jones – at 6-2 and 210 pounds -- had 56 tackles and 10 for a loss. His eight sacks (4 ½ of which came in one game) and 11 hurries led the team.
Just as he is a late-bloomer in wrestling, Jones really began to blossom on the defensive side of the ball after initially getting his first break on offense as a sophomore.
“I started as a sophomore on the offensive line,” he said. “Then, I started getting pretty good at defense. I just wanted to do my best this season. I knew it was my last shot at it.”
Well, maybe not.
“We’ll see,” he said, adding that he has a visit planned to Shippensburg. “I do want to play in college, but I’m not sure yet (if the opportunity will arise).”
What a Division II-level program would be getting – aside from a quality person – is an emerging athlete who has translated the skills learned in wrestling into being a relentless edge rusher on the football field.
“The basic thing is lifting, working hard in the weight room,” said Jones, who added that he went to a Penn State summer camp prior to his junior year to refine his skills.
As for the connection between wrestling –where he often deploys quickness to gain the edge on heavier opponents in the 220-pound weight class – and football, Jones has seen the benefits of the correlation.
It may have not happened for him overnight, but it is all falling into place for him as a senior.
“Oh yeah,” he confirmed. “The explosiveness, using your hands, shedding blocks – it’s all there.”
Jones, with a 3.3 grade-point average, will have to pair up with a school that has criminal justice along with a football program where his skill set is also a match.
Numbers aside, it was Jones’ intangibles that set him apart.
“Micah was a captain on the football team, elected by his peers,” said Banas. “Micah has been starting on the varsity team since he was a sophomore and has been a leader both on and off the field.”
A lot of that starts at home, where he learned – on a daily basis – that it is not all about him.
Jones, who is involved in youth ministry, credits his mother, Fran, for her support, by “always being at his matches and his games.”
He also said that having eight siblings was more of a positive than a negative.
“I kind of like it,” he said. “You never get lonely.”
He added that it helped that all the Jones kids are “at least two years apart,” and range in age from 33 to 15.
“We’re all spread out,” he said. “So, there are always a lot of places to go.”
And he is determined to carry that over into the real world, where the good guys don’t often get enough credit, by being a leader in the larger community.
“I always liked the idea of law enforcement,” he said. “I just like helping people. I’ve always been like that.”
