Willie Jones, Jr. (left), shouting commands to wrestlers,
and Walter Fairley, LJHS wrestling assistant (right),
at the City Conference meet named in honor
of Willie's son. (Photo by Ed Piper)
By Ed Piper
I moved to San Diego in 1993 after grad school.
I read about the shooting of Willie Jones, a model student at Lincoln High, the next year. I taught Juvenile Court students beginning around that time, so violence related to my students was not a foreign idea.
Most recently, I had the honor of meeting Willie's father, also Willie Jones, Sat., Feb. 6, at the City Conference Wrestling Championships held at Serra High. Walter Fairley, long-time vice principal at La Jolla High who retired a couple of years ago and a Hall of Fame wrestling coach (see other blog entry), told me Mr. Jones was at the meet.
I thought it over, and came back to Mr. Fairley and said, "Do you think we could take a photo of you with Willie Jones?" He said sure and located him down the front row of the stands.
What impressed me was, while the elder Jones was active and shouting commands to wrestlers on the other side of the crowd barrier in front of him, he intentionally engaged me in conversation to find out a little about me. He acceded to the photo request. But he didn't leave it at "getting his picture taken".
"Now, what do you do with these photos you take?" he asked me as people walked by and over me, sitting on the gym floor in front of him. I told him I have a photo website (as well as a blog) devoted to LJHS sports.
We exchanged the information that we had each retired from public school teaching in recent years: he, after 37 years, me after 33 (32 officially). I asked him where his son Willie had accepted a full-ride scholarship to wrestle and study toward being an obstetrician (I found this detail out later with some online research). He said Cornell.
About technology, I asked him if he was on Facebook. "No." He said doing things on the computer could be pretty confusing.
He said, "It's so hard sitting here (in the spectator section) when I know these wrestlers and can help them," after shouting some words of encouragement and pointers to a wrestler on the mat directly behind me.
As we parted ways, I told him good-naturedly, "We need to get you on Facebook. Then you can talk to all your friends."
That's the deep wealth that Walter Fairley gives to the La Jolla program. He knows people like Willie and many others. His going to a meet like this, I figured out, is like spending time with his long-time friends.
Willie Earl Jones Sr., the father I was talking to, it turns out helped build the Lincoln High wrestling program up. Walter Fairley was trained in that program while wrestling for San Diego High in the 60's. Willie Sr. wrestled at Mesa College.
His son, Willie James Jones III, was ASB president at Lincoln in 1993-94. He went to the state finals his senior year, with his dad coaching. He also ran cross country and participated in a spring sport. He carried a 3.8 GPA.
According to a Daily Bruin article in his honor years later, Willie III was called to mediate the dispute that led to the later shooting. Someone outside his graduation party, the day after his graduation June 16, 1994, had felt disrespected by another person. And Willie tried to smooth over ruffled feathers.
Later, a shot or shots rang out and one hit Willie in the chest, killing him.
Two months later, the street where it occurred, which is the right turn toward the school campus off Imperial Avenue, was renamed Willie James Jones Memorial Street. I spent many days during my four years as an independent studies teacher in JCCS driving by that turn to go to the house of one of my students--who was on my roster because of his gang and drug issues. I do not know how that latter young man ended up, as he dropped off my roster a couple of years before I retired last October.
Willie Jones III avoided drugs, gangs, and violence. He served two summers as an intern at UCSD Medical Center. A scholarship in his name for a student to attend Cornell University was established.
I'm really encouraged by people like Willie Earl Jones Jr., Willie's father, and others who work for a better world.
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