John Thomas Jones played baseball and football at Tallassee High School before graduating. He signed with the University of Chattanooga before entering the Navy for three and one-half years during World War II.

Following the war, Jones enrolled at Troy State where he was a letterman in football and baseball. He graduated from Troy in the spring of 1948. Jones would later receive his Masters Degree from Auburn.

His first coaching experience came that same fall when he accepted the head football coaching position at Hayneville High School just south of Montgomery. In seven seasons at the helm of the Blue Devils, his teams finished with a combined 46-15-9 record according to our records. Some seasons are still incomplete.

Coach Jones stepped down at Hayneville following the 1954 season to take over the football program at a new high school just opening in Montgomery. The school, Robert E. Lee, would become one of the powers in high school football in Alabama for the next forty years.

Until 1955 Sidney Lanier dominated the high school football landscape in the Montgomery area by being the only major school in the city. In 1955 Robert E. Lee opened and immediately let their presence be known in the capital city by going 6-4 with a young coach named Tom Jones.

Over the next ten seasons the Generals would amass an overall record of 86-9-5 and finish five seasons being ranked as the number one football team by at least one source. In a time prior to the football state playoffs, each of the ten teams would finish in the top ten of a newspaper poll at the end of each season.

The 1958 General finished 10-0 and earned the first State Championship for the young program. They were voted number one by the Birmingham News, Post Herald and the UPI.

Coach Jones led the 1959 Lee team to a 9-1 record and his second State Championship as determined by the voters at the Birmingham News. The three-peat came the following season when the Generals finished with a 9-0-1 record. That team was also voted the top team in the state by the Alabama Sports Writers.

Following an 8-1-1 record in 1961, the Generals went 10-0 in 1962 and once again were voted number one in the final poll of the season by the ASWA. The 1963 version of the Lee Generals finished 8-1-1 and produced back-to-back titles as determined by the Montgomery Advertiser and the Associated Press voters.

In eleven seasons at Lee, Coach Jones amassed a record of 92-13-5.

Following the 1965 season, Coach Jones stepped down at Lee to accept the head coaching position at Auburn University for the freshman football team. He was considered a master recruiter at Auburn and coached Pat Sullivan, Terry Beasley and other Tiger football stars during his tenure on the Plains.

Coach Jones resigned in the spring of 1972 to accept the head football and athletic director job at Troy State University. His first team at Troy went 4-5-1 followed by a 7-2-1 slate in his second year at the helm.

The 1973 team won the Gulf States Conference title and was actually the first team to be known as the Trojans. Shortly before the beginning of the 1975 season, Jones submitted his resignation at Troy.

After sitting out a year, Jones would return to the high school ranks for a couple of seasons at Lee High School. His two teams finished 11-9. Following the close of the 1976 season, Coach Tom Jones hung up the cleats forever as a high school football coach in Alabama.

He may have retired but the legend continues to grow. His overall record as a high school football coach in Alabama is 151-46-14. He was inducted into the Alabama High School Athletic Associations Hall of Fame in 1992.