How K.C. Jones’ Daughter Rediscovered Her Dad…….

The moving boxes, filled with life, sit in a storage unit in Maryland. Their contents teem with photos and clothes and sentimental ephemera, material that goes beyond yellowing newspaper clips, the stoic presence prowling the sideline, a knight of Boston Celtics mythology.
They are part of Bryna Jones’ life. Months before K.C. Jones died on Christmas morning 2020 at the age of 88, Bryna, the fourth of his six children, began using her social media (Instagram: @becoming_bryna; Twitter: @Becoming_Bryna) to display mementos and photographs from her father’s basketball life. Now she spends her spare time with the boxes, learning about a man who always revealed little.
When he landed the Celtics head coaching job and made the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, she first heard the news elsewhere.
You would have found out about it eventually, he told her.

By late January, she had only gone through seven of the 20 boxes, immaculately organized by her stepmother. When Bryna first saw the contents, the emotions came like an avalanche —”sadness, gladness, happiness, relief, regret, wanting more time with him.” Her aunt says there might be 20 more. There are plans to start separate social media accounts to honor Bryna’s father. She wants to start a podcast and a website, build a foundation. The goal remains the same. Basketball fans know about K.C. Jones coaching Kevin McHale, Robert Parish and Larry Bird to immortality. They can learn about the tenacious Hall of Fame defender with a brisk internet search supplemented by a trip to the library.
Bryna Jones wants to reveal the K.C. Jones she knew, the one the public never saw. She benefits, too. By sharing him online, K.C. is present in her life now in a way he never was when he was alive.
It was a challenge to be a child of basketball, Bryna said. Other dads lived by the clock. K.C. Jones’ professional life was in perpetual motion. After his playing days ended, he embarked on a lengthy coaching career that, in addition to the NBA, included stops in the ABA, college and the ABL, the short-lived women’s basketball league. The NBA is where he secured his reputation as a great head coach, winning championships with the Celtics in 1984 and ’86.
He’d be gone weeks at a time. “I would be frustrated,” she said.  “I wanted him to be a dad that came home every night, like everybody else’s dad at six o’clock.”
Upon his return, the resentment and tension vanished.
“He was there with us,” Bryna said.
The kids cherished every minute of it. K.C. Jones loved cartoons and had a special appreciation for Foghorn Leghorn. He preferred mysteries and Westerns. He was a John Wayne fan, but he possessed a great sense of humor and had a way with a zinger. Both were exemplified when he took the kids to see “Star Wars,” a momentous event for any child in 1977.
That’s the best movie ever, Dad! Did you like it?
I liked it when it said, “The End.”
Then there was the time in San Francisco when he went on the log flume at California’s Great America. Bryna sat in front. The dip came. Bryna ducked, leaving K.C. — the intense defender of Celtics parquet floor lore — drenched from head to toe. Everyone laughed. He went merrily along.
“Dad made everything great,” Bryna, now 56, said.
Basketball did not bleed into family life. There was no hoop in the driveway, no concerted attempt to build the next generation of basketball stars. Bryna did watch games with Dad for fun. He’d provide running commentary, and she would demonstrate what should have been done. There were visits with his Celtics teammates, but nobody tiptoed around history. Little Bryna felt safe and loved around those large men.

The NBA, K.C. told his son K.C. III, was a business, not a glamour gig. He did not bring work home, save for one time. In the 1983-84 season, he was frustrated with the Celtics, whose dominance was assumed, after a practice. Victories weren’t a panacea.
“Man,” K.C. groaned to his son after reading The Boston Globe one day. “I can’t even win right.”
Later that season, K.C. Jones won his first championship as a head coach.

Bryna was amazed how her father recalled details of games he had played years ago. Meanwhile, she, who played collegiately at the University of Hawaii, couldn’t remember the game she’d played last night.
It wasn’t important to you, he told her.
He’s right, she thought. At the University of San Francisco, K.C. played with Bill Russell. The lifelong friends became philosophers, dreamed up plays and strategies, getting lost in a 94-foot-by-50-foot world of possibilities. Through hours of repetition, they determined blind spots so they could hide on the court before striking their opponents.
“We were inspired … we were rocket scientists in sneakers,” Russell wrote in his memoir, “Second Wind: The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man.”
The assumption persisted that the Celtics of the 1980s would have won with any coach. That might be true, said Jerry Sichting, a key bench contributor for the vaunted 1986 team, but a difference exists between a winning team and a championship team. K.C. won 14 championships in college and the pros with an Olympic gold medal thrown in for good measure. He knew the difference. There were times when the team was rolling and Jones would say nothing in the huddle during a timeout. But as Parish, the Celtics’ Hall of Fame center said, Jones was an outstanding situational coach. If the game was close, he had a play that led to a good look.
Men were treated like men. If Jones saw a player at the bar, he’d offer a “you be good now” and split. When the Celtics suffered their one home loss in 1985-86, Sichting said, the coach didn’t chastise the players or punch a chalkboard. The Celtics, of course, reached the NBA Finals in 1986; it was not a coronation. After a Game 5 loss in Houston, Jones had the team practice right after the plane landed in Boston.
“We were almost fighting each other right off the bat,” Sichting said.
The fire having returned, K.C. ended the practice. In Game 6, the Celtics throttled the Rockets to win their 16th championship.
K.C. loved his players — “his kids,” Bryna called them. When he died, Parish said, “the world seemed a little less.” In 1993, the veteran center was charged after five ounces of marijuana were mailed to his house. It was a scandal. The two men had a heart-to-heart. Stay strong, the coach told his former player. Someone else will step in it, and it will blow over. The tension properly diffused, Jones offered some advice.
“Robert: Fame, ain’t it a bitch?”
Parish felt the media got “everything” wrong about Jones.
“For whatever reason, they never embraced him as a coach,” Parish said. “They didn’t like him as a person. Why? I have no idea because all the man did was win.”
Leigh Montville, the former sports columnist for The Boston Globe, felt Jones was “probably underestimated by the press,” even though he led the Celtics to four Finals appearances in his five seasons as head coach.
“He was seen as the reaction to Bill Fitch, the soft guy replacing the harsh guy, the players’ coach replacing the disciplinarian,” Montville said. “I think the soft guy always is going to be underestimated because he doesn’t crack a whip, make a lot of noise. I liked K.C., liked his approach. You don’t win a couple of NBA championships without knowing what you’re doing, even if you have a great team. He made life easy for those guys.”
All-Star guard Phil Chenier, who played for Jones with the Capital/Washington Bullets, saw the mischaracterization. During the 1975 NBA Finals, CBS cameras caught assistant Bernie Bickerstaff diagramming a play. Chenier felt that moment cost K.C. his job, when it was really just indicative of Jones’ style. He sought input from players and coaches. At halftime and after games, Sichting remembered, Jones asked assistants Chris Ford and Jimmy Rodgers for their thoughts. Sichting, who became an NBA assistant coach, loved that philosophy. Jones’s unflappable presence on the sidelines belied his passion. The storied Celtics teams of the 1950s and ’60s were driven to win. “We all had that killer instinct,” said Bob Cousy, the legendary point guard. There were no long-term contracts or free-agency bonanzas. Jones, a point guard, followed suit, swarming ballhandlers, funneling opponents toward his teammate, the prowling, spry Russell.
“There was no joking around with him,” said Johnny Egan, a longtime opponent. “He was almost like a fighter in the ring, man: I’ve got three minutes, and I have to go.”
On a team of great scorers — Bill Sharman, Tommy Heinsohn and Cousy — Russell and Jones “filled in that puzzle.” That effort was consistent, Cousy said. The Houdini of the Hardwood could always depend on his longtime backup.
That passion didn’t diminish with age.
As a coach, Parish said Jones’s approach to the game was simple. “We’re here to take the eff over for two hours or however long the game is,” he said. “And I loved that attitude. Even though it was borderline arrogance, I always felt it’s not arrogance if you’re kicking ass.”
Sichting remembered an exhibition against the Lakers where a fight broke out. In the melee, he found his coach putting Michael Cooper in a headlock.
“He was a person you didn’t want to cross,” Chenier said. “If you got angry, he would go at you.”
But Jones also opened up his home for get-togethers. Chenier saw the benefits. You might have an issue with a teammate, feel the rage bubble — then you’d remember basketball wasn’t the only part of his life.
It took Bryna years to learn that about her father.

“At the end of the day,” Cousy, 93, said, “the human animal in the bigger picture responds to survival and self-interest. Sports opinions are predicated on the same thing.”
Thus, geography and time shove the Celtics’ 11 championships in 13 years into sports history’s attic, stacked on top of George Mikan’s Minneapolis Lakers, Bird and Magic Johnson’s rivalry, and Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen’s three-peats.
All Bryna wanted with her social media accounts was for people to remember her father. Instead, they shared their memories. They recalled how he would sing — Parish was shocked when K.C. took to the stage at a restaurant and nailed a couple of numbers — and that he was a nice guy, an inspiration.
Popular Celtics Twitter accounts shared her posts — Honest Larry, Frosty Bias, and Larry Bird’s Mullet. In the rush of game highlights and gifs and breathless trade rumors, K.C. mattered.

@MrChuckD

Royalty of Culture: we thank @Becoming_Bryna for the inside jewels of her Dad KC Jones great legacy.


“These guys helped our family; we can’t express it enough,” Bryna said. “Like my mom, she says to this day, ‘I love them. They don’t know it, but I love them.’”
Josh Abelman (aka @HonestLarry) was born into a family of Celtics fans. He heard the stories of Celtics legends before falling in love with the ’70s John Havlicek-Jo Jo White championship teams.
“It was like a family in a weird way,” he said.
Bryna’s account, he said, turns heroes into mortals. Bill Russell and Willie Naulls hang out with Dad, reclining and smiling. There’s Dad napping on the couch, curled up with her sister, Holly.
“It’s a haven,” Abelman said of the account he considers a respite from the seemingly ceaseless, can-you-top-this awfulness of Twitter. “How many likes can I get? How many hits? I don’t think that’s what she’s about. She’s about nostalgia. It’s nostalgic for and it connects with people who are nostalgic for the old Celtic, K.C.”
Bryna sees the version of her father she didn’t know, the wiry young man destined for greatness. She sees the photos with Russell, Sam Jones and Naulls, whom she calls her uncles. She remembers Dad getting ready for the game, heading to the arena. All the memories — good and bad — rush in. She feels closer to him now.
Bryna became used to her father as an inconsistent presence. After her parents’ divorce in 1981, she saw him even less. K.C. never slowed down. Games gave way to golf tournaments. What she shrugged off then, makes her sad upon reflection. When someone talks to her about their parents, Bryna knows what she missed.
“You stick to them as long as you can,” she said. “Move them into your house, do whatever you’ve got to do. Keep that bond, and keep it strong.”

The summer before Bryna started eighth grade, her father could no longer overlook her height. Forget the flute, the kid had to hoop. The day before his basketball camp started, he tutored Bryna on the basics. By the end of the week, she had fallen in love with the game and was the camp’s most improved player. A few years later, she received a basketball scholarship from Hawaii.
Bonded by basketball, K.C. managed to attend just one of Bryna’s games. When Bryna was 40, he apologized for not being more involved in her life. She cried.
“A lot of suppressed pain and bitterness left my heart when he said that,” Bryna said.
It was a turning point. In her frustration, Bryna overlooked how the separation affected him. Her father gave everything to basketball for his family to have the best possible life. He did his best. “Dad beat himself up about us kids,” she recalled.
For nine years, from 2011 to 2020, she didn’t see her father. There was a layoff during the Great Recession, coupled with money problems and depression. Seeing Dad wasn’t a priority. In August 2020, Alzheimer’s had taken hold. Bryna’s siblings flew her from Texas, where she lived at the time, to Connecticut. She was afraid her father, his glow extinguished, wouldn’t recognize her. Bryna arrived and removed her mask. K.C. giggled. She saw his relief.
He didn’t go yet. Her mom showed up, then her sisters. They sang to him and reveled in one another’s company.
Finally, they were together.

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Brilliant piece.  Someone better fix that Top 15 Celtic Greats of all time.  Whoever has any connections on this board that can point this out on a grander scale, it's a disgrace that needs to be rectified.  It has to be an oversight.  But it must be fixed.  I'd understand if K.C. Jones was on the bubble like a Rondo or Ray Allen, but he's EASILY EASILY in the Top 5 and more than likely in the Top 3 with a Russell and another with the same last name.  

I'm sure Bryna is stupefied.  I sure as heck am!!  Time for some justice, folks.  

db

P.S.  The best/easiest way for whoever to CYA is to change it to (at least) 17 to match the number of championships to date and add two more.  Everybody wins.

This is where you need a Steven A. Smith.  He would slaughter this.  I'm stupefied he hasn't said anything about this. This is exactly the equivalent of if the Lakers decided to do a Top 15 of all time and left Kobe off. He's right in there with Kareem and Magic at the top. Anyone with a connection directly to SAS? If someone can find me his secured email address or however he communicates with the public, I'll do it myself.

I tire of the glorification of players who gave a couple of years good basketball taking the place of players who deserved the real pat on the back. Sure...Ray was great for those couple of years, Rondo was spectacular, but does Ray REALLY belong on the top 15 list????NO No way.

Thanks for sharing this story. I lived thru this era, watched KC from beginning to end. I do not know what the Celtics would have been without him, he was a major cog in the wheel that made up he Boston Celtics of the 1960's. Then coming back to us as a Coach that those teams in the 80's and bring home two titles.

KC was special, a winner, a brilliant guy who did things his way. I hope his daughter, with this project, will find what she is searching for....peace, love and joy in learning how many of us out here loved her father for years and years and were so saddened by his passing.

Thank you for this wonderful story Ktron, and I second everything Rosalie and dbrown said. I watched a lot of the Hawaii Wahines volleyball games while I lived in Hawaii 1980-2018. Not so many hoops games, men or women, and I was not familiar enough with the teams to know that Bryna Jones was KC's daughter at the time if I did happen to see her play.

I always loved KC's coaching style. And his penchant for singing. As pointed out above, he often did let Bird, Parish, McHale, et al just figure it out themselves during a timeout. It worked. Enuff said

Certain players are their own franchises coach on the floor, Chris Paul comes to mind, as did ofcourse Larry and Magic, would have to include Jordan in there.

Ray quit the team and should not be on it.

Again, the Celtics have a deep, deep history of so many great players.  Just not enough seats at the table.

This is a really good piece on KC.  Thanks to ktron for sharing.

I remember growing up and going to Celtics games sitting in the $2 seats. me and my younger brother. My favorite player was and still is Sam jones. His was K.C. But he could never pronounce his name right. My brother always referred to him as K.B. Bones. I used to try and correct him until I finally gave up and would just giggle every time he said it.
Funny, to this day whenI see a picture of K.C. Or a story like this the name K.B. Bones still sticks in my mind.
K.C., was our Marcus Smart of the 60’s. One of the greatest defenders ever. Back then they would refer to players that played that position as “Playmaker” and K.C. Was one of the best at that too.
K.C. May only score 2 points. 6 on a great offensive night but his impact on the game was immense.
To not have him on the top 15 as a player, and a 2 time championship coach for the same team is asinine.
This is why I hate polls and “Best of” BS. It’s so subjective and the people that really know the value of a player are the ones that aren’t afforded the opportunity to vote in most cases. Sports writers and broadcasters are used to evaluate something they never experienced first hand. Thats one of the problems.
To conflate Ray’s value with K.C,’s is not in the slightest bit realistic. 10 championships 2 as coach and the fugitive Ray Allen, who contributed to ONE title and abandoned ship is on the team?
Satch isn’t either and he too should be but thats another story for another time.
This article is touching and brings it home.
Even when KC coached Washington and we couldn’t beat them we still had a love for him. The fact that he may have been fired because Bickerstaff was drawing up a play instead of KC is appalling. Just shows how shallow opinions, survey and polls are. So trite and so not right.

dbrown4 wrote:Brilliant piece.  Someone better fix that Top 15 Celtic Greats of all time.  Whoever has any connections on this board that can point this out on a grander scale, it's a disgrace that needs to be rectified.  It has to be an oversight.  But it must be fixed.  I'd understand if K.C. Jones was on the bubble like a Rondo or Ray Allen, but he's EASILY EASILY in the Top 5 and more than likely in the Top 3 with a Russell and another with the same last name.  

I'm sure Bryna is stupefied.  I sure as heck am!!  Time for some justice, folks.  

db

P.S.  The best/easiest way for whoever to CYA is to change it to (at least) 17 to match the number of championships to date and add two more.  Everybody wins.

This is where you need a Steven A. Smith.  He would slaughter this.  I'm stupefied he hasn't said anything about this.  This is exactly the equivalent of if the Lakers decided to do a Top 15 of all time and left Kobe off.  He's right in there with Kareem and Magic at the top.  Anyone with a connection directly to SAS?  If someone can find me his secured email address or however he communicates with the public, I'll do it myself.

I’m with you DB, lets find out who’s responsible for this debacle and pound them to the parquet.

Thank you, Ktron and everyone! Like I said, this would be OK if KC was a marginal player, but the comparison to the Lakers doing the same thing and leaving Kobe off is apropos and absolutely equivalent.

It looks like this was done by Celtic fans, which I find even harder to believe.

I googled Stephen A. Smith's email. It didn't look exactly secure but I sent him a comment anyway. Maybe he has a twitter account or something. I'm a little out of my element there!

Agreed with Satch as well. It's funny we all knew that 15 wasn't going to work. But instead of us arguing over a Ray Allen or Rondo on the short end, they (whoever put this together) went for the jugular!

db

In clips I’ve seen, KC looks sleeker and faster than Smart….just sayin

cowens/oldschool wrote:In clips I’ve seen, KC looks sleeker and faster than Smart….just sayin

K.C. was sleek and fast. 2 totally different eras so I’m pretty much satisfied knowing that we had/have 2 of the best defenders who ever played in the NBA.

dbrown4 wrote:Thank you, Ktron and everyone!  Like I said, this would be OK if KC was a marginal player, but the comparison to the Lakers doing the same thing and leaving Kobe off is apropos and absolutely equivalent.

It looks like this was done by Celtic fans, which I find even harder to believe.  

I googled Stephen A. Smith's email.  It didn't look exactly secure but I sent him a comment anyway.  Maybe he has a twitter account or something.  I'm a little out of my element there!  

Agreed with Satch as well.  It's funny we all knew that 15 wasn't going to work.  But instead of us arguing over a Ray Allen or Rondo on the short end, they (whoever put this together) went for the jugular!

db  

The fans deciding this is even worse.

I agree, because you will get a younger generation who has no idea whatsoever of who KC was or what he accomplished in his lifetime. This is unfortunate.but in my eyes really, really wrong

This article me cry---maybe it was this eyelid problem I'm having minor surgery to correct next month. Anyway , I appreciate the post