Baseball Money Didn't Sidetrack Fsu Recruit -- Walla Walla Quarterback Concentrating On Football

Jared Jones was very comfortable with his decision to fulfill a lifelong dream and accept a scholarship to play football at Florida State University.

Then the Milwaukee Brewers gave him more than a million reasons to have a few second thoughts.

Just before the recent major-league baseball draft, three teams told the three-sport athlete from Walla Walla High School he would be their No. 1 pick if he decided to skip college football and play pro baseball.

The Brewers had the 13th pick overall and made it clear that if Jones would skip college football and become a pro baseball player, he would receive a signing bonus of between $1 and $1.5 million.

"That was a real temptation, but we'd made our decision a couple of months earlier," Jones said. "It was tough because I'm 17 years old, they were talking about more than a million dollars and I don't even have a car."

Jones, who throws a fastball clocked at 94 mph and often is compared to New England Patriot quarterback Drew Bledsoe in football, stayed true to his school.

He is concentrating solely on football, working out at home before he reports to Tallahassee at the end of July.

Surprising for a kid from the Pacific Northwest, Jones always has loved Florida State, ever since he watched on television when Charlie Ward quarterbacked the Seminoles to a national championship.

"I love everything about Florida State," Jones said. "I love the way they play football. I love their uniforms. I love the tomahawk chop. Everything. It's one of the best universities in the nation, and playing football there is always something I wanted to do."

Jones can't remember the time he hasn't dreamed of playing college football. His father, Randy Jones, works at the Walla Walla Penitentiary, but he was also a part-time defensive line coach at Walla Walla Community College.

"I've wanted to play college football ever since I was a little kid running around at all those UW football camps," Jones said. "It was really tough to tell (UW) I had decided to go to Florida State."

Florida State not only promised Jones a chance to play football, but baseball as well. He's been guaranteed he'll get to play on the FSU baseball team, which made it to the College World Series this year.

Besides the promise of baseball in his future at FSU, Jones also was guaranteed that he comes to FSU as a quarterback.

At 6-foot-5, 220 pounds, there is no question Jones could play just about any position on the field.

"They guaranteed me they wouldn't change my position and that I'd have to make the decision to change positions," Jones said. "I fully expect and want to play quarterback."

Jones already has received the FSU playbook. Now that summer is here, he's checking the mail at his College Place home daily for more game films to study.

"Hopefully, I can get in there and at least be in the second quarterback role," Jones said. "No matter what happens, even if I redshirt, I'll get to travel with the team this year. I'm really excited about it."

Florida State is the most successful college football program in the country, ranked at least in the top four in the country in each of the last 11 years.

Playing through injuries his entire senior season, Jones still was chosen to the Parade Magazine All-American team. He was rated the No. 5 prep quarterback in the nation by the Tampa Tribune and 37th-best prep player in the nation by the National Recruiting Advisor.

"I was no more than 70 percent the entire season," Jones said. "I really didn't get completely healthy until about halfway through basketball."

Jones suffered a thigh contusion and then was burned when the injury was treated with an extremely cold chemical that ended up causing welts on his legs.

"I couldn't even bend my leg and then we couldn't treat the initial injury because of the burns on my legs," Jones said. "There was nothing I could do but wait for the burns to heal."

Jones missed Walla Walla's first two games and was limited to only two games at free safety.

"It was tough to deal with," Jones said. "Here I was getting all this national attention and all this preseason hype and I couldn't even play."

Jones made it back in the lineup in time to throw for 684 yards, but that was far fewer than he expected in a career that covered 2,816 yards in his three years at Wa-Hi.

Even with all the time missed with his injury, the national awards kept rolling in.

"I was a little surprised, because of the injury, but I knew I could play," Jones said. "I kind of felt bad about it because they were all based on my potential and talent. But I just took them as they came."

When Jones reports to Tallahassee, it will be only his second trip there. He's not quite sure what to expect.

"I've talked to a lot of guys and they said the biggest difference between high school and college is the speed of the game," Jones said.

He also has spent time talking with Bledsoe, who prepped at Walla Walla before starring at Washington State University.

"Drew said that the adjustment from high school to college is even a bigger adjustment than from college to the NFL," Jones said.