During his five years at Stanford, Spencer Jones had many peaks and valleys. He holds the men's basketball program record for most 3-pointers made (315) and games played (146) along with being the only player in program history to be top ten in both blocks (10th, 112) and steals (5th, 151). Yet despite these accolades and personal accomplishments, Jones never played in the NCAA tournament, seeing that dream hampered due to injury and other things outside his control. It’s a sacrifice he ended up making because of his commitment to the Cardinal program and Stanford University. If you ask Jones, he wouldn’t have it any other way. He leaves Stanford with gratitude and resolve to carry the lessons he learned into the next chapters of his life.
A year ago, Jones was weighing his options about whether or not to return to Stanford. He had his degree in hand and could have made a lot of money in this new NIL world. He also could have positioned himself to play for a sure-fire NCAA tournament team and live out a dream that every college basketball player has of playing in March Madness. Throughout the process of deciding what he would do, what mattered the most to Jones was the fact that head coach Jerod Haase and the entire Cardinal program believed in him when nobody else did. He wanted to return the favor by sticking with them for his final season of eligibility. In his mind, loyalty is a two-way street.
“Yeah, yeah, I definitely had other options,” Jones said. “Definitely could have made more money going other places and probably increased a little bit of the draft stock having gone somewhere. I mean, it is interesting. I could say that this year was a failure in terms of didn’t increase my stats, didn’t increase draft stock, and didn’t really have team success. But, like I said, a lot of that was due to the injury, which was unfortunate. Which also may have happened at another school. And then a school where the coaches aren’t, don’t have this much investment in me.
“But, beyond that I really liked going to the place. I really loved my time here and everything like that and my only consideration really was the basketball piece, but at the end of the day, it was a lot on loyalty. The fact that they kinda took a chance on me as a recruit. Kinda very last minute by my freshman year and then since then have given me every opportunity to prove myself and I have and so it was just kind of a loyalty thing, you know.
“And I knew that I’d feel much more proud of myself for sticking it out throughout this process versus going somewhere else and it was also a big reason why I kinda played through the season instead of getting my surgery earlier, which I kinda had figured out somewhere around halfway through the season that I was gonna need it and so I knew what the recovery time was and I kinda wanted to finish out the season because at that point it was like I don’t want to end my college career not playing. I don’t want to leave games on the table that I could have played.”
With his Stanford career now in the rear view mirror, Jones has new challenges in front of him. He hopes to make it in the NBA all while knowing his odds of getting drafted are slim. The wrist injury he battled all season long hurt his production and also his chances of guiding Stanford to the NCAA tournament. Now that he is getting back to full strength, the hope is that he can find his way on to some two-way contracts and from there prove that he belongs.
“Yeah, so I got surgery right after season on the wrist issue that was bugging me a little bit,” Jones explained. “Wasn’t crazy invasive, but it was something I had to take care of. And so, since then I was in a cast for six weeks and kinda doing whatever I could with that cast. Lifting, just kinda staying in shape is what I could and then after six weeks just been a gradual decline to basketball stuff.
“Obviously once you get the cast off and do all the conditioning, you can sweat as much as you want. I’m in great shape. I’m lifting just as much as I would if I did have the cast on and now it’s time to move on to my agency now that my rehab is good enough. I’ll get a couple weeks there to really train hard and get ready for these draft workouts. And so I’ll take as many as I can. As many as my wrist can handle up until the draft and kinda see where it goes from there.”
Despite his wrist injury and his fifth year not going the way he planned, Jones still received interest from NBA teams throughout the entire season. At 6’7”, he has good size and length all while being able to battle inside and stretch the floor with his 3-point shot. He has some interesting tools to work with. It’s just a matter of him showing how versatile he can be and that he is much more capable than his statistics at Stanford would tell you.
“I’ve had interest the entire year and everything,” Jones said. “And teams know I was messing with a messed up wrist and the feedback I’ve gotten is a lot of teams see me at the very least as a two-way guy. It’s a business though, so you wonder coming off an injury if they’ll try to undersell me for an E-10 or something like that, but like I said, the fact that I’m just coming off an injury and my agent says he can set up ten to fifteen workouts with different teams and so, the interest is there. At this point it’s just finally time to go prove it and that’s the part I love about it.
“Biggest thing is that this season wasn’t my best. Clearly, I mean it wasn’t statistically-wise. But, also that I haven’t lost a step at all. I mean clearly, I was dealing with a bum wrist and still shot 40 percent from three. So bare minimum you are getting a 40 for three percent shooter. But outside of that, a bit more ball handling, a bit more creativity that I was unable to kinda show consistently. And then just my ability just to be able to defend multiple positions. Definitely two through four. Even one through four that I didn’t during college and just prove that I can be a day one plug and play kind of guy.”
While he is excited to prove himself at the NBA level, there are things about Stanford that Jones is going to miss. He’s going to miss his teammates and coaches. He loved how invested Jerod Haase was in his players and how much he genuinely cared.
“Oh gosh. Everybody would say it is always the guys,” Jones said of what he’s most going to miss about putting on that Cardinal jersey. “Everybody’s kinda going through similar things. Everybody’s around the same age. It’s kinda something you do, that camaraderie you definitely lose when you go the NBA. It’s like right after practice we’re going to similar classes, we’re going to the same thing later tonight, going to the same frat parties, stuff like that.
“You’re definitely going to miss that and then just with Coach Haase, just like how much he cared, how much vested interest he showed daily in the players and everything. That’s definitely something. Definitely never felt like a transactional relationship, which is maybe how it might feel as you obviously go make money playing professionally. But yeah, that kind of care and compassion is definitely something that I’ll miss.”
On new head coach Kyle Smith, Jones has had a few meetings with him and likes what he sees. While Jerod Haase will always be his coach, he feels like Smith has the pieces to be successful at Stanford and get the program back to the level that he feels it can reach.
“Yeah, I’ve had a couple meetings with him and everything,” Jones said of Smith. “Yeah, he’s definitely prepared for the kind of job. Having come from Columbia as well and Washington State. He’s been on both spectrums of kind of the basketball kind of aura around the program in terms of Columbia being obviously more into academics. Washington State definitely more into the sports world.
"So, he knows how to navigate both of those and that’ll be interesting doing both of those perspectives to Stanford and then he’s a great personality. I could definitely see he’s already shown an ability to recruit some guys and try to re-kinda-form this roster after it’s taken a bit of hit. So I’m interested to see what he and his staff do.”
In addition to putting his best foot forward with basketball, Jones has also been looking to be more involved in the community. Already having a relationship with Jacqueline Diep of The Big Homie Project, Jones was able to easily find opportunities to engage in the type of meaningful service that he was looking for.
“After the season ended, I had a decent amount of free time. I didn’t have much classes to take and all that stuff and I’ve already been kind of training kids on my own time,” Jones explained. “Kinda being involved in the community and stuff like that. So she had a bunch of opportunities with that.
“So she connected me with, it’s connected with The Big Homie Project. It’s the team they have called YGB: Young, Black, & Gifted and so for the last probably two-three months I’ve been just showing up there helping with practices. It’s just under privileged kids just kinda first time being in an organized sports community/sports group and showing them how to play, all the right ways to play and just teach them the values that they can learn from team sports and it’s been very fun.”
For Jones, working with kids is something that brings him a lot of joy. He finds it’s really good for his mental health and helps him gain a more mature perspective on life.
“Volunteering is always something that kinda refreshes your mind a little bit,” Jones said. “Especially as you get older, a lot more of your relationships become transactional and business-like and everything. It’s always fun just how blunt kids are and so it’s always refreshing to get that perspective.”
With May being Mental Health Awareness Month, Jones specifically looked for opportunities to make an impact in that space. Diep was able to help him find the perfect spot to share his insights with the next generation.
“More specifically on the mental health side was Jacqueline also connected me with the teacher at Ravenswood and I went to talk to their eighth grade, it was sixth or eighth grade. Something like that,” Jones recalled. “It was mental health awareness and just teach them about mental health and stuff like that. It’s always great because like I said, those lower served communities need more importance on the mental health side because it’s just not important to them because it’s like they’re struggling so much on the physical side and the survival side of just life. It’s like who cares how I feel about certain things if I can’t even put food on the table. Like if I can’t do the basic, if I can’t consistently provide or constantly worried about the basic needs of survival physically, it’s like how am I going to tell my kids to worry about the mental side. It’s almost like a privilege to worry about the mental side.
“So, just kinda telling them the importance if they can about the mental side. Telling them, teaching them that yeah, I have used my sports psychologist on campus and that’s been very helpful of all the tools I have used to kinda deal with the pressure that is coming to Stanford and the success that people expect from you. So, that was something I talked to them about an hour and took pictures with them. You know, it’s always great to kinda see the impact you can have and how much they look to you and how much those kids are more willing to listen to me versus their teacher just because I’m taller, I’m a basketball player, which is what they look up to and so I feel I have a responsibility.”
Jones remembers being a kid looking up to basketball players like himself. To be in a position where kids look up to him has been humbling. He wants to pay it forward as much as possible and help kids who aren’t afforded the same blessings that he was given.
“It’s been eye-opening,” Jones said of being in his position. “One to acknowledge the privilege I had when I was a kid. The worries were not similar worries. Just the things that my parents instilled in me early with education and everything. They kinda set me up to where I have. Yeah, it’s definitely, it definitely just felt like a responsibility in terms of these kids look up to you and it would just feel like a waste if you don’t give back in the sense. Especially those who didn’t have the same things I had growing up and won’t have the same opportunities.
“So it’s almost like I give back by trying to teach them as much as I can on how to give them the skills or the wherewithal to be ready for the limited opportunities that they’ll have because there’s always a thing where yeah, some things in life happen because you’re lucky, but also it’s like those that are more fortunate have more opportunity to receive that luck. With lower served communities and lower served kids, you have to just make sure it’s even more pressure for them to be prepared for those limited opportunities that they have to receive that kind of luck and so that’s how I kinda see it is kind of giving them as much information, as much help, as much guidance I can for them to not miss out on those opportunities because they weren’t ready and just because there’s not going to get as many.”
As he is embarking on this new chapter of his life, Spencer Jones truly leaves Stanford a more mature and seasoned person. He has an amazing perspective on life and embodies what it means to be a Stanford Cardinal. He’s going to be an alum that will make the community proud.
“I always love the community," Jones said. “You’re never too big for the community here. Just because everybody is so great at everything…I could be like the number one player in the NCAA and at the same time I could have somebody who is building the next huge startup that will change a significant amount of lives and it always puts everything into perspective. It really puts you in the mindset of like yeah, I’ll be able to play my sport as long as I can, but afterwards, you’re still gonna have to try to find a way to really have meaning and impact in your life and it keeps stuff like that in the back of your mind.
“And then also it’s just like now that I’ve kinda had the time to just downtime with the rehab and everything, kinda connect with the community and how willing they are to help you and really develop you as a person…It’s always great to see all the people who watched you, who rooted for you despite how well you played or anything like that. They truly understand the work that it takes to be here to be successful here and everything.”
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