University of San Francisco Athletics

K.C. Jones was born on May 25, 1932 in Taylor, TX. K.C. was his given name, after his father, a factory worker and cook who took the name of the railroad engineer Casey Jones. When he was nine, he moved to San Francisco and attended Commerce High School, where he played basketball and football.
 
At 6’ 1” and 200 lbs, Jones played college basketball as a point guard alongside Bill Russell. During their time with the Dons, Russell and Jones led the team to a 55-game winning streak, and Jones helped introduce the alley-oop. The duo helped win the NCAA Championships in 1955 and 1956. Jones also played on the United States National Team which won the gold medal at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia, defeating their opponents with a record margin of 53.3 PPG. USF retired his jersey (#4). Woolpert said of him: "the team has a world of confidence in him, and I find him the most coachable player I have ever met (USF Athletics)."
 
Jones was part of a history-making starting team in 1955 and 1956. USF had made the ground-breaking decision to go against the gentlemen’s agreement, in effect during the early years of basketball, not to play more than two African-American players at a time. Under Head Coach Phil Woolpert, the starting lineup included three African-American players: Bill Russell, K.C. Jones and Hall Perry, along with Carl Boldt and Mike Farmer.
 
The Richmond Free Press reported in 2020 that it wasn’t easy for the team on the road. In Oklahoma City in 1954, the Africa-American members of the team were denied hotel lodging. In a show of unity, all the members of the team and the coaches spent the night in a nearby college dorm.
 
After college, Jones was drafted by the Boston Celtics in the Second Round of the 1958 NBA Draft (13^th overall pick), and tried out for an NFL position as a defensive back with the Los Angeles Rams, but did not make the cut. He then went on to play for the Celtics until 1967. A tenacious defender, he was part of eight championships with the Celtics, and retired after the 1967 Eastern Conference Finals. Jones was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 1989.
 
Jones went to Brandeis University in 1967 to serve as Head Coach of the basketball team. He was Assistant Coach at Harvard 1970-1971, and then reunited with former teammate Bill Sharman as the Assistant Coach for the Los Angeles Lakers. They won a record 33 games and in 1972 he coached the ABA’s San Diego Conquistadors. He went on to coach the Capitol (Washington) Bullets, the Milwaukee Bucks (Assistant), the Boston Celtics (Assistant then Head Coach), Seattle Supersonics (Assistant then Head Coach), the Detroit Pistons (Assistant), and returned as Assistant Coach to the Celtics in 1983. While with the Celtics as Head Coach, the Larry Bird-led team won the NBA Championships in 1984 and 1986. Jones also led the Eastern Squad to a win in the 1986 All-Star Game in Dallas at the Reunion Arena. The Celtics won the Atlantic Division in all five of Jones’ seasons as Head Coach, and reached the NBA Final four out of five years.
 
In 1997, he coached the newly formed women’s team the New England Blizzard, in the American Basketball League.