When Cooper had gotten banged up on the court and was making his way slowly to the sidelines, Miss Jones — a.k.a. LaShaunta’ Jones, the athletic trainer for WSU’s men’s basketball — came toward him.
In the throes of discomfort, he walked past her toward the end of the bench and then around behind it and that’s when the two-on-one really kicked in:
“Cmon Baby, you gonna be alright. You hear me? You gonna be OK, Baby. She got you!”
That was Mama Jones as LaShaunta’s 69-year-old mother, Darlene, is known by Raiders’ players. She was calling out from her seat in the front row of the Nutter Center stands, just behind the WSU bench.
That’s her usual spot except when her legs are acting up and then she sits on a straight back chair brought out by a security guard and set up next to the stands.
LaShaunta’ — just Shaunta’ or Shaunta’ Lynn or sometimes just Lynn, all names Darlene uses for her only daughter — is the prime caregiver for the Wright State basketball players and in her case, she not only tends to their physical ailments, but sometimes their mental needs and emotional concerns.
She handles bruises, sprains, dislocations, and once in a while, even a break.
She listens to players’ troubles, fortifies insecurities and sometimes she just makes them cookies, cupcakes or serves them what they call her “sick tea,” which many believe to be a 24-hour cure-all for just about anything.
LaShaunta’ did that and much more at Central State, where in her 19 years there, she served as everything from head athletics trainer to an adjunct professor and the senior women’s administrator in athletics.
At both Wright State and CSU — and when she worked for Dayton Public Schools, specifically at Stivers, Belmont and Dunbar — she’d been a role model to student athletes, especially girls and young women of color.
They’ve watched her work with confidence, compassion, a sense of humor and when necessary, an unbending backbone when dealing with the occasional sexist or obstinate male coach or out-of-sorts athlete.
Those occasions have been rare and the truest assessment of her comes from someone like Clint Sargent, the Wright State head basketball coach, who works with her on a daily basis.
“We’re very fortunate to have Miss Jones,” he said. “I love her approach.
“She helps our players take more responsibility for their habits, but never hesitates to meet them where they’re at and help guide their decision making.
“She sets a great example for all of us on how to serve and lead.”
Hearing something like that makes Mama Jones proud. She raised LaShaunta’ and her younger son LeJuan for the most part as a single parent on the South Side of Springfield — State Street, now called Johnny Lytle Avenue — though she was helped by her family, especially her mom and her dad who was a Baptist preacher with quite a demonstrative delivery.
“Oh yeah, when he got in the spirit, he was the kind of preacher who walked on the back of the benches,” Darlene said with a nod and a smile. “Not the seats, the backs of the benches!”
She said people were drawn to him and it’s obvious some of that magnetism rubbed off on her.
When she sits behind the Raiders’ bench, she draws a steady stream of people wanting to talk, clasp her hand or give her a hug.
That includes some of the Raiders players — guys like Solomon Callaghan, Logan Woods, Andrea Holden and newcomers Cooper and T.J. Burch — and especially Florrie Cotterill, the post player on the women’s team from England who made sure when her dad visited that he met Mama Jones, as well.
Fans regularly stop by and the other day I saw Callaghan’s mother come out of the stands to offer a hug. WSU athletics director Joylynn Brown did the same and a couple of security guards kept returning to her to share stories and laughs.
“That brings me real joy when I see people with her like that,” LaShaunta’ said. “People really do care about her.”
That was never more evident than last year when Darlene was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Three years earlier she and her older sister Marsha had nearly died from bouts with COVID. That scare shook LaShaunta’ to the core and this time the Raiders’ team did all it could to buoy her.
“When I was getting ready to go into surgery they got in a huddle and put Shaunta’ Lynn in the middle and prayed for me,” Darlene said. “After that they kept checking on me.”
LaShaunta’ said players and coaches sent her mother text messages and called her.
She said Alex Huibregtse, one of the stars of last season’s team, felt a special connection to her mom:
“He called her, ‘The Number 1 Fan.’ He checked in on her regularly and when she was able to come back, she’d be on the sideline yelling for him.
“And he’d come down the court and motion to her that she was No. 1!”
After she got through the worst of her ordeal, Darlene told her daughter she wanted to give back to the players, although she already had been giving them a lot.
Her daughter, who lives in Fairborn, comes to Springfield to pick her up for home games and once at the Nutter Center, Darlene sets up the water coolers and some other necessary things in the training room. Sometimes she may just sit off to the side and talk to a player who has something on his mind.
Credit: Chris Snyder
Credit: Chris Snyder
At Wright State there are seven trainers and each one overlooks a different sport. At Central State, it often was just LaShaunta’ and interns from Wright State and nearby Cedarville University handling the training chores.
Darlene would help there too, often setting up some of the equipment on the football field before practice and she even learned how to pre-wrap athletes’ ankles before her daughter came through and taped them up.
Although she doesn’t go with WSU on road trips, she did travel with her daughter at CSU, especially on football trips which sometimes entailed 10-hour bus rides one way.
“When we went to some of the NFL stadiums, I’d look up and there was my mom with a group around her,” LaShaunta’ said. “She’d not only met the people who actually worked there, but pretty soon she had them getting all kinds of stuff for us. But that’s her, she can talk to anybody.”
A lot of that goes back to her nearly 40 years running bar in Springfield. Originally called the Scott Street Bar, it’s now known as Club 425.
“I never really had any problem, Darlene said. “I went in sober and carried the Lord with me.
“In 40 years, I never had a bouncer. I’d tell ‘em, ‘If I turn the music down, you all better straighten up.’”
LaShaunta’ said: “People would stop in just to see her, kind of like at the games now.
“That bar was kind of like Cheers where everybody knew her name.”
‘A great role model for others’
Rather than Springfield South, where her mom went, LaShaunta’ went to Springfield North, in part so she could spend time with her older cousin, Emily Jones.
“Growing up, I used to go to the football games every Friday night with my uncle,” she said. “Down in the middle of all the action on the sidelines I’d see these students wearing shirts that said “TRAINER” in big letters across the back.
“I said, ‘I want to do that.’ I thought they just passed out water and had fun.”
Her cousin was a senior trainer when LaShaunta’ joined her on the sidelines as a freshman.
“But then she quit after three weeks,” LaShaunta’ said. “I stayed, and what started as a joke became a lifelong profession.”
She had been a track athlete, but as a young girl she had an undetected heart murmur that first showed itself when she passed out after running a 400-meter race.
Her mom ended her competitive career that day, so LaShaunta’ put her efforts into her academics and her athletic training and because of a program she and several other students had entered when they were grade schoolers, she’d been told with good grades, she would get a full scholarship to Central State.
But in her junior year of high school, she said CSU officials informed the students they knew nothing of the program.
She was devastated until the head trainer at North, Jayson Wilshire, suggested his alma mater, Wright State, and called his mentor, Tony Ortiz who ran the athletic training program at WSU.
“I wanted to diversify our athletic training ranks, and I liked her from the beginning,” Ortiz said. “She became a real professional and is a great role model for others. She’s like my daughter. She is awesome.”
When LaShaunta’ was a WSU senior and already had all her course work completed, Ortiz suggested she intern at CSU. She balked at the idea at first, but he insisted and what was to be a brief assignment lasted almost two decades.
She especially came to love the CSU students who she said work hard and will do anything for you, even though they often don’t get the recognition or the perks that students at other schools do.
“They’re diamonds in the rough,” she said.
Her embrace of the CSU job and students was wonderfully captured in a documentary done several years ago by Corey Bulger, a student there. Entitled “Women With College Athletics,” it still can be found on YouTube.
When she finally left CSU, she worked for the Kettering Health Network, then DPS, and had just begun a job with the Ohio Valley Surgical Center when Jason Franklin, then the head athletic trainer at Wright State, called about the men’s basketball position.
She agreed to try it for a year.
She’s now been there for over four years and “loves it.”
‘I try to stand by her side’
A couple of afternoons ago I visited Darlene at her home in Springfield. She met me at the door and apologized for still having her Christmas decorations up.
“I’m taking most of it down, but I’ll be leaving the red up for Valentine’s Day,” she said.
The biggest Valentine was in the center of the room.
Her Christmas tree is made up of white teddy bears and bright red bows and in the center of it is a large photo of her smiling daughter, wearing a Wright State shirt and a tiara that said “Birthday Queen” on the front.
“That’s from her birthday on December 16,” Darlene explained. “After the game (against Miami) we had cupcakes and what not so that the kids could come in and have something and their parents could, too.”
While LaShaunta’ often gives the athletes something to eat — she’s big on cooking and baking — she also gives them lessons to chew on, some of which they don’t care for initially.
“When you come to see me in the training room you have to put your cell phones down,” she said.
“And you need to communicate when you walk in. Don’t just start telling me what you need. When I don’t respond, they look at me and I say, ‘How about first a ‘Good morning,’ a ‘Hello’ or a ‘How are you?’”
“And no cussing,” Darlene said, “She makes them do pushups.”
She started to laugh: “T.J. (Burch) told her ‘Miss Jones, you and your mom are something else! You all just have a fun time.’
“And I told him, ‘Yes we do, but when she’s giving you hell, don’t feel bad. She gives me hell, too.”
LaShaunta’ tries to monitor her mom’s diet and health and make sure she stays safe and comfortable and involved.
That’s where Wright State basketball comes in.
When I visited her, Darlene was about to start making Valentine’s bags for all the basketball players, coaches and managers.
“I’ll probably make about 30,” she said. “I try to put little snacks in there so when they’re on the road they have a little something to munch on.”
Handy with a needle and thread, she’ll take players’ torn practice jerseys and sew them up. And she’s been known to take in coaches’ pants and shirts that are too big.
Most of all, she’ll take time to just listen to the players. She’ll offer advice or just a kind word, not to mention a laugh and a little bit of the Lord.
“I tell ‘em, ‘Every morning when you open up your eyes and put your feet on the floor, that’s the Lord giving you that breath to get up and move on. Don’t forget that.’ That’s who gives you joy each day.’”
As for her joy, she said it comes when she’s with her two kids, and especially LaShaunta’ when she’s at Wright State:
“I thank God I’ve been able to help my Baby. I try hard to stand by her side in every which way and I try to support everyone else’s child that comes across my way, too. And then when I get up there to heaven at least I can say, ‘Lord, thank you for allowing me to touch somebody’s life.’”
Her daughter, she said, will be able to say the same thing.
That’s why Mama Jones and Miss Jones make such an unbeatable double team.
Credit: Joseph R. Craven
Credit: Joseph R. Craven
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