George Francis "Snoozy" Jones was a fixture at UAB for decades. The original UAB football line coach, bookstore owner, and Alabama High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame member passed away on July 6. He was 91.

Jones was born on December 24, 1934, in Montgomery, Alabama. He played football at Sidney Lanier High School alongside future NFL legend Bart Starr before earning a scholarship to Virginia Tech. He later earned a teaching certificate from Huntingdon College.

"Snoozy Jones was like your favorite uncle," former UAB running back Pat Green told the Dragon's Den podcast. "He looked after me. He was a fun guy to be around. He was always cutting up. I loved that man like my favorite uncle."

That kind of affection from a player says everything. Jones was not just on the sideline drawing up plays. He was genuinely invested in the people around him.

He coached and helped fund UAB's club football team in 1989 and 1990 before serving as assistant head coach on Jim Hilyer's original NCAA staff from 1991 to 1994. UAB went 28-12-2 in those four seasons.

"He was the glue that helped tie everything together through both Jim and Watson," a former UAB associate athletic director told Diehard Sports Network.

The "glue" description is not an exaggeration. Jones helped hold a brand new programme together at a time when UAB was building everything from scratch with almost nothing.

Jones also opened Snoozy's College Bookstore in 1983 on 11th Avenue South with his wife Agatha and their children. It served the UAB community for 34 years as the official retail outlet for UAB's Gang Green and National Alumni Society.

When UAB shut down football in 2014, Jones became one of the loudest voices in the community pushing to bring it back.

"Football was wanted. Football is needed," Jones said in a video posted to the bookstore's YouTube channel. "The program is for the kids. They want to play football."

That fight worked. UAB football returned in 2017. Jones also taught American and world history at Sidney Lanier High School and was inducted into the AHSAA Hall of Fame in 2012.

A Celebration of Life is set for July 28 at the Country Club of Birmingham.

Francis Jones coached some of Alabama’s best high school teams before UAB

Before UAB, Jones built a remarkable record at the high school level. He spent three years at Bellingrath Middle School in Montgomery, where his teams compiled records of 24-2 in football and 40-6 in basketball.

He returned to Sidney Lanier in 1961 and took over the track programme. Under his guidance, Lanier won two outdoor state titles, one indoor championship, and one cross-country title, per AL.com.

"The most important thing was to have a coach that was really interested in track and not just drawing a supplement check," Jones said in The Over the Mountain Journal. "I thought if the coach showed interest, more kids would come out for track, and we could get the numbers up."

Jones believed a coach's genuine interest in track, rather than financial motivation, is key to increasing student participation and building the program.

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Written by

Farheen Fathima

Edited by

Zaid Quraishi