7/20/2007

Meet the New Coaching Staff - Amos Jones

Leading to the start of training camp next week, we'll be taking some time here at IWIWAR to introduce you to the new Steelers coaching staff, culminating with a look at new head coach Mike Tomlin. Click on the Meet the Staff tag below to see previous articles. Today, we'll take a look at new assistant special teams coach Amos Jones.








Amos Jones - Assistant Special Teams Coach

Age: 47
Education: Alabama
Professional Playing Experience: None

What to Like: Obviously his first name, Amos. Could he be a member of Bill Simmons' Reggie Cleveland All-Stars? Plus he played for Bear Bryant at Alabama. How much did he play? Eh, not so sure. His official bio says that he played on the 1978 and 1979 teams, but that he lettered on the 1980 squad, so he definitely got some PT that season.

What Not to Like: Not only does Amos not have any professional experience, but he has multiple instances of high school coaching experience, including in the past 10 years. Looking back on his coaching stops, he went from Temple to Shades Valley High School in 1986 (although that might have been a step up, given Temple's football history). He was the kicking game coordinator at Pitt in 1992 and parlayed that into an assistant coaching position at Eau Gallie High School in Florida. After jumping back into college coaching at Tulane in 1995-96, he pulled off that rarely seen coaching jump - NCAA to CFL to high school. Must've been a great experience for those players at East St. John High School in Louisiana! Oh yes, and it appears that he got fired from his most recent job, with Mississippi State!

Random Internet Find: The new coach shares a name with one of the lead characters of Amos 'n' Andy. Also, not only did Mississippi State fire him, but apparently Cincinnati did, too!

3 comments:

travis said...

And we (MSU) were happy to see him go!

Unknown said...

and any MSU Fan that reads this will laugh heartily..when they see the great Amos is back coaching Special Teams..

What a disaster of a coach he was.

Anonymous said...

Amos was not fired from Cincinnati, he left for James Madison University.

And if anyone at MSU had brains to remember he was actually successful with the players he had. Special Teams was one of the few things that was not a joke on the MSU football team during the Croom era.