Katrina sent Jones to AFL

Ron Jones, the SaberCats' sacks leader, had no intention of ever playing arena football. His pride wouldn't permit him to sign with anything but an NFL team, which is why, in 2005, he was back home in Gulfport, Miss. That's when Jones was hit by something that shook him to his core: Hurricane Katrina. "Seeing that kind of destruction and that much devastation shocked me to where it made me humble," Jones said. "Something like that brings you back to reality." That newfound humility led Jones to the Arena Football League. Now with his second team in two seasons, the defensive lineman enters the SaberCats' home game tonight against Grand Rapids with six sacks, tying him for fourth in the league. Jones said he doesn't know where he'd be if Katrina hadn't hit the casino-driven town on the Mississippi coast. He signed with the 49ers out of Southern Mississippi in 2004, but was cut. He landed a place in the camp of the Indianapolis Colts, only to be cut again. He felt that a move to the AFL was out of the question and chose to stay home instead of try out for the New Orleans VooDoo. Jones also turned down offers from NFL Europe and the Canadian Football League. "I was kind of arrogant," Jones said. "I couldn't swallow my pride. I didn't want to. I didn't want to go anywhere. I sat out the whole year." But everything changed that night in August 2005, when he and relatives were bunkered up in the house of his late grandmother. Jones assumed that the hurricane wouldn't be any different than previous ones he'd survived. He was wrong. The house sat on a hill, but ankle-deep waters seeped in. A tree crashed through the ceiling and fell into the living room. When the hurricane had passed, Jones drove through a town he could no longer recognize. "Nothing but concrete slabs," he said. The casinos that had lined the coast were gone. One had been pushed so far inland that it stood only a block away from his father's auto-repair shop. Seeing that, Jones said, "I did what I had to do." That meant signing with the AFL's Nashville Kats. But Jones played in only one game for the Kats in 2006 and was waived. The SaberCats picked him up. Determined to make this season better than last, Jones set out to lose weight. "I needed that extra step I had in college," Jones said. He cut red meat out of his diet in favor of chicken and fish. He stopped eating late. The task was made easier when Jones reported to SaberCats training camp. He no longer saw the soul-food restaurants that tempted him in Mississippi. "Out here, you pretty much see Starbucks and Subway," Jones said. Jones shed 25 pounds and now weighs 275. "He's worked his butt off," SaberCats Coach Darren Arbet said. "His focus is a lot better than it was last year." Again, Jones cites Katrina. "For you to have success, you have to be humble," Jones said. "You have to take in. You have to be a student." As for his NFL goals, Jones said, "If it comes, it comes. If I take care of what I'm supposed to do here, it'll come eventually."