(This is the third of a 5-part series on Detroit Public School League basketball legend, Curtis Jones. Please follow these links to read Part 1 and Part 2.)
Curtis Jones off the basketball court was an entirely different story.
He was the youngest son in a family of seven. His father, James, was a skilled tradesman for Chrysler who died of lung cancer when Curtis was just 12 in 1961. His mother, Henrietta, was a stay-at-home mother, and his siblings held jobs ranging from engineer to a career Air Force man to artist to dental hygienist. All of which made the revelation of Jones’ illiteracy all the more improbable for his parents to comprehend.
In 1959, Jones was an 11-year-old fourth-grader at Estabrook Elementary School when teachers addressed his sub-standard classroom progress with his parents. The Joneses agreed to psychological testing which yielded mixed results.
The Detroit Free Press reported in a 1983 article that his personality was described as “even-tempered,” “well-mannered,” “obedient,” and “unselfish.” The tests also revealed an IQ of 73 – considerably below average.
“His teachers came to me and said, ‘We think he’d be better in special ed,’ ” his mother told the News’ Girard. “I said all right, because I knew his mind wasn’t on any books. But what did they teach him? I found out later it was sewing and cooking. It was nothing like what we thought he was learning.
“Curt just couldn’t sit down and read. He could hold a conversation with you – oh, he could use those words like it was God’s gift,” his mother added. “But he could not read or write. It wasn’t from any lack of help from other people. My husband and I sat at the table many a night, til all kinds of hours, workin’ with him. The next day he’d get up and do the same thing all over again.”
Beyond the gift of the spoken word, Jones had a talent few had seen on the basketball court and that – as much as anything – led him to the trouble he eventually found himself in.
“(He) was misused because of his talent,” Robinson recalled. “Everybody was out to get him, and wanted him badly, including me. He really couldn’t read or write, or if so, very poorly. All through his earlier life, they just passed him along in school. That’s where the mistake was.”
The Jones family alleged later in a $7.5 million lawsuit those that were out to get him included his high school coach, the late Fred Snowden. Prior to Jones’ senior year at Northwestern, Snowden became an assistant coach at the University of Michigan for Johnny Orr. Snowden, the family’s lawsuit later claimed, was aware of his learning disabilities but promised to get him admitted to U-M if he was able to earn the necessary grades for two years at a junior college – North Idaho Community College in Coeur d’Alene.