‘Data-driven’ Jones is Timberline’s new football coach
Timberline High School didn’t have to look far to find its new head football coach, promoting offensive coordinator James Jones to the top spot after Nick Mullen left to take the Olympia High School job.
That’s not to say the feel will be exactly the same around the Lacey program, with Jones’ personality more of the ice to Mullen’s fire over the past decade.
“Nick and I have been a pretty good team together in terms of balancing each other out,” Jones said. “I’m all strategic, and he’s all emotion.”
Mullen agreed with that sentiment, saying Jones had a proclivity for “keeping him calm” over the years. Jones has been an assistant on the Timberline since 2009, except for two years off in 2016 and 2017.
Mullen leaves Timberline with a 79-40 overall record in two stints as head coach, sandwiched around two years, 2015 and 2016, when he served solely as Timberline’s athletic director. He guided the Blazers to the state 3A quarterfinals in 2017 and 2018, earned West Central District Coach of the Year honors in ’18.
Jones has been part of that success, and now, he will have the chance to put his stamp on the program.
“I think we have really good kids,” Jones said. “Talent comes and goes, but if you have good kids who care about each other, care about the school, that’s what really matters. That creates coachability, that creates trust.”
To Jones, it’s part of what makes Timberline a special school: Its investment in the whole student.
“Building the whole kid, the whole student-athlete,” said Jones, who also teaches English at Timberline. “When they come out onto the field, those kids have had that experience all day long. We’re able to just translate that onto the field. Let’s be unique. We’ve been good going back 20 years or so. I think so much of it starts with the community with Timberline.”
Jones’ three children recently graduated from Timberline: Malachi (2013), Reneeka (2014) and Israel (2015). He played fullback for Oregon State from 1988 to 1991 before attending graduate school at Notre Dame. Previous coaching stops include Stadium High in Tacoma and Rogers of Spokane, before moving back to the state’s west side and coaching at Olympia for a year, before settling in at Timberline.
Mullen calls Jones a “data-driven” coach.
“That’s a good thing,” Mullen said. “He’s very good at figuring out what’s going to work best with his personnel. … Film study is his really strong point. He’s really good with the x’s and o’s, very good with film study, studying his opponent.”
That’s something Jones prides himself on — the analytic and preparation side of the game.
“For me, it’s big,” Jones said. “I love to sit down and watch film. Who’s the guy we feel like we can take advantage of? How can we take advantage of how they line up? At the end of the season, I run a data report. What’d we do well, what didn’t we do well? On defense, it’s the same thing.”
Timberline will continue running its pistol spread offense with Jones at the helm. He wants the Blazers to be in attack-mode on the offensive side of the ball.
“I want it to be fun and exciting,” he said. “We’re fast, so we want to use that speed to our advantage, whether it’s on a fly sweep, taking deep shots, running at you. We’ll have a defense that’s going to be sound, play fast, hit hard. Let’s blitz, let’s go crazy. Let’s let kids line up and have fun. I want kids to have a good time, feel like they have this great experience of being with their buddies, winning together, losing together, being a team and a brotherhood.”
Timberline’s 2020 schedule is already set, with the Blazers opening their slate with a non-league contest against defending 2A state champion Tumwater at home on Sept. 4. Could a matchup with Mullen and the Olympia Bears be in the cards in future years? Jones said he’s open to it.
“We’ll see,” Jones said. “Obviously, I love Nick and there’s nothing I’d love more than to go play him and beat him. And there’s nothing he’d love more than to beat me. But who knows? In two years, we’ll figure out if that makes sense.”
