American Magazine, July 2015

play
empty, humid gyms. The result?
He made 27 of 64 (37 percent)
last season, after which Brennan
awarded him a scholarship. Don’t
expect it to change his offseason
routine or quell his desire.
“He made it
difficult for me
to not play him.”
— Eagles coach Mike Brennan
For basketball players looking to
elevate their game, the offseason is
just a rumor.
Summer is when inches can
be added to vertical jumps, when
shots can be hoisted until wrists
throb, when one extra set of chest
presses or squats at sunset on a
June day can pay dividends at the
end of a game in March.
No one knows this better than
Charlie Jones, who has used
summertime to develop himself
from a scrawny Division III
prospect into a bona fide Division
I contributor.
Jones’s transformation began
after his sophomore year at Mount
Saint Joseph High School in
Baltimore. After a season in which
he played sparingly on the junior
varsity team, he began working
with a well-known local trainer.
“I train athletes from middle
school to the NFL,” says Kyle
Jakobe, who owns Sweat
Performance in Timonium,
Maryland. “We’ve had Super Bowl
champions, we’ve had Olympic
gold medalists train at the gym.
He’s the hardest worker we’ve
ever had.”
Despite growing taller and
stronger throughout high school,
Jones’s only D-I scholarship offer
was rescinded. Undeterred, he
decided to walk on at AU, where
his effort in practice made it
impossible for Eagles coach Mike
Brennan to ignore him.
“You correct something in
his game or you tell him to work
on something and he does it
immediately, at an intensity level
and rate at which he gets better,”
Brennan says. “He made it difficult
for me to not play him. When he
got his opportunity in games, he
did what he does in practice—he
made an impact.”
As a freshman, Jones hit just
six of 19 (31 percent) three-point
attempts. That summer he put up
countless shots with Jakobe in
“I really never viewed a
scholarship as defining me as
a player, and it doesn’t validate
me as a player now,” says Jones,
who spent much of this summer
working out with Jakobe in San
Diego. They lifted weights for up
to 80 minutes four times a week,
and fired up at least 500 shots
almost every day. Jakobe even
incorporated speed and agility
drills on the beach to break up
the monotony.
“The summer is definitely
a time when guys can separate
themselves from teammates, and
teams can separate themselves
from other teams,” Jones says.
“Games and championships are
won during this time. Obviously
you have to perform when the
season comes, but you have to
develop yourself individually
before you can improve as a unit.”
Hours upon hours pumping
iron and shooting baskets in stuffy
gyms hardly sounds like the ideal
way to spend a summer at the
beach. But Charlie Jones isn’t on
vacation—he’s working.
PHOTOS BY LAUREN RADACK
STEEPLECHASE(N) HISTORY
STAT SHEET STUFFER
Josh Ellis broke a school record that had held for 42 years when he posted a time
of 8:58:68 in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the Swarthmore College Final Qualifier
in May. He ended his season by finishing 27th in the same event at the NCAA East
Preliminary Outdoor Track and Field meet in Jacksonville, Florida.
Junior lacrosse midfielder Terese Buechli did a little bit of everything this
season. The All-Patriot League second-team selection finished tied for second
on the team in total goals and was fifth in total points, while defensively she
led AU with 13 caused turnovers. She also won 22 draw controls and picked
up 21 ground balls.
10 AMERICAN MAGAZINE JULY 2015