Adam Zagoria
Special to Rivals High

NEW YORK ? When Kenny Jones first appeared at practice at Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn last month, he was overcome with emotion.

"When I first walked back in the gym, they all stopped practicing and ran over to me," Jones recalled. "All the guys on the team, even some of the new guys who I never really met, told me how happy they were that I was back. I was overwhelmed by that. This whole ordeal has been pretty emotional to me."

Both Jones and former Jefferson assistant Tyrone Davis were shot in separate incidents in October. Davis, 52, lost his life, while Jones, 48, spent "three long, grueling" months in the hospital rehabilitating.

The team dedicated the season to both men, choosing to wear Band-Aids on their sneakers in honor of Davis and Jones.

"We're playing for more than ourselves," Jefferson coach Lawrence Pollard said before Jones returned. "We're playing for coaches that are not here and coaches that really were 100 percent into the program."

Davis, whom Jones had known for 25 years and who had served as a volunteer assistant to Pollard for four years, was fatally shot Oct. 3.

Police said that Davis was shot in the chest in Bedford-Stuyvesant by a lone gunman who fled, according to the Daily News. He was pronounced dead later that day.

The motive for the shooting remains unclear and the investigation is still open, a police spokesman said. No one was arrested in connection with the case.

"Tyrone was a role model for me," 6-foot-6 junior forward Joel "Air Jamaica" Wright said. "That's a coach that I could look to over on the bench. When I'm in the game and I'm not doing very good, that's the coach that would calm me down. I would go sit next to him and talk to him."

Davis often inspired the players with phrases like "No pain, no gain," and in his honor Wright had those words tattooed on his forearms.

A little more than two weeks after the Davis shooting, Jones was shot two times in the side by a 20-year-old man in the Roosevelt Houses on Oct. 23.

"I remember the whole shooting very well," Jones recalled. "He had an altercation with my [22-year-old] daughter. He hit my daughter. I went over there [and] I confronted him. We spoke. He went to swing at me and I grabbed him.

"After I grabbed him, I let him go and I walked away and he fired at me. All his friends were out there with him. I felt like a little pinch in my side, close to my chest, and I went behind a car and I went down. I didn't want nobody to move me. I just sat there and waited for the ambulance to come."

The alleged assailant was charged with attempted murder, assault, criminal possession of a weapon and the criminal use of a firearm, but he has not served any time.

"I don't know the situation with that," Jones said.

The double-shootings traumatized the Orange Wave and the school called in experts to speak with the kids.

"When it first happened we brought in a therapist to sit down and talk to some of the kids," Orange Wave assistant Seldon Jefferson said. "And I think that helped and that worked. And I just remind the kids that you gotta do what these guys would have wanted you to do."

He spent three months in Kings County Hospital, unable to walk or talk.

"I lay in a bed for two months, so long that the muscle mass in my legs got so weak and I couldn't walk no more," Jones said. "I had to go to rehab and build that up. My legs are still kind of weak.

"I had two operations. They had put a hole in my throat and I couldn't speak. Then they put a trach [tracheostomy] there and I had put my finger in it in order to speak."

Instead, he blinked his eyes once for yes and twice for no when his wife, Ronnet Jones, asked him questions.

"It hit us so hard that it was a cut to us," Wright said. "We got cut and we use Band-Aids to say that we're not bleeding no more. That's an appreciation of how much they mean to us."

The team even reserved a set of orange sneakers for Jones.

"When I first got back they had a pair of sneakers for me with Band-Aids on them," he said. "I didn't have nothing orange on, but I put them on anyway."

Jones returned to the sideline Jan. 23 when Jefferson played in the SNY Invitational at NYU's Coles Center, but he walked with the aid of a cane. He says he only uses the cane outside of his home and is fine without it inside his house.

"It was special to me because it was the first I've seen him in a long time," Wright said. "His health and everything made me a little worried because he got a little skinny. He lost a lot of weight."

Jones sees his role on the team as vital.

"When guys come to the bench I give them a sign of encouragement," Jones said. "I couldn't really do that because that was my first game back and I was a little weak.

"Whenever coach 'Jeff' or Coach Pollard really gets on the fellas, my job was to really boost them back up or give them tips on what they're doing wrong. Pretty much encourage them."

Wright has benefited from Jones' encouragement.

"He's been a real role model for me, always in the gym, always helping us out with whatever he need," Wright said. "He's always there to just pick us up when we talk to him or anything like that."

Jefferson finished tied for second in its division in Brooklyn and lost to Lance Stephenson and Lincoln Sunday night in the Borough championship game. The PSAL playoffs begin Feb. 24.

Jones said he knows the season is dedicated to him and to Davis, and he would like nothing better than to see the Orange Wave capture a championship in their honor.

"Oh," he said, "that's my ultimate goal."

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