Father figure
By: RAYMOND PARTSCH III
Managing Editor
To his family, James Jones was a good man who was hardened by life.
A pair of severe automobile accidents had made him nearly disabled as one accident caused a brain injury and another forced James to have a metal rod placed in his leg that made walking difficult, in fact for a time doctors didn’t even believe he would recover to walk.
Those handicaps though didn’t stop him from providing for his wife and three children. James worked odd jobs around Ville Platte doing electrical, carpentering or mechanical work to make ends meet.
To his children, especially his youngest son Cody, James was as tough as they come.
But when Cody thinks back on one of his favorite memories of his late father, what springs to mind is a moment not necessarily belonging to such a gritty persona.
“He always promised me to go fishing and we never did because I was usually so busy playing sports,” Cody said. “One day we went fishing and we were just out there fishing and a little lightning struck nearby. So I turned and grabbed my rod to run back into the truck and he was already sitting in the truck. I was like ‘you can’t even run how did you get in truck that fast?’ and he said ‘you better get in here before I leave.’”
Making an impression
The father he lost when he was a 12-year-old boy still motivates the now 21-year-old man.
Cody is set to graduate from Northwestern State in the fall with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. The former Ville Platte High multi-sport star will also be playing his final season for the Demons football team lining up as a wide receiver-running back.
But those achievements pale in comparison to being father to his two-year-old daughter Khylee.
“I just go out there on the field and classroom and work my butt off so I can live up to what he wanted me to do,” Cody said.
Expectations were high growing up for Cody.
His father preached many things like work ethic and responsibility to his athletically gifted son. He hated trash talking and cockiness and made sure his son did neither.
James though also didn’t shower his children with praise. He would tell them ‘good job,’ but his demeanor would always convey of being not impressed.
“I had to do a lot to impress him,” Cody said. “If I was playing baseball and I hit one home run he would be very matter of fact about it. That made me work hard so I could impress him.”
More than meets the eye
Cody’s mother though says there was a method to her husband’s tough-love approach.
“He always said that Cody is going to make it,” Sandra said. “He’s going to make something of himself. He’s going to go all the way. He would say that ‘I’m not going to take it easy on him because if I do then he will fall short. I may not express it or show it to him all the time but I am very proud.’”
The love he had for his children was evident after James died from complications of a brain aneurism, which forced him to be restricted to retirement facility for the last five months of his life.
“He had his own safety deposit box,” Sandra said. “I went in it after he died, and it was just pictures of his children and clippings from the Gazette that he had kept and got laminated. Those are the only things he had in that box."
“After he passed then people would tell me how proud he was of me,” Cody said. “They would say things like 'he would talk a lot about you and he wouldn’t put anybody in front of you'. It made me feel good to know that.”
Making it count
At the age of 12, Cody had lost his father.
Even as friends and family mourned the loss of the Jones family patriarch, Cody tried not to let his emotions get the best of him.
“My dad was tough and he would want not want me to cry at his funeral,” Cody said. “But I was at home one day and it just hit me, and I cried for almost an hour.”
James was not there in the flesh to watch his son develop into one of the area’s premier athletes. He wasn’t there to see his son sign an athletic scholarship with NSU, and he wasn’t there in person to see his granddaughter born at Opelousas General.
For Cody, that made the time they did spend together that much more important.
“It made me scared for a minute, because I don’t want to love anybody that hard and then have to lose them,” Cody said. “But I realized that comes with life. Losing him made me value life a lot more. It made me value the things that I have. You can lose everything in a split second.
“I felt God made me stay with him when I was little because he knew that I wasn’t going to have him later on,” Cody added.
In the years that would follow, Cody would do what he could to help provide for his family. While attending high school, Cody worked at times with his uncle Desmond in his electrician business as well as working in the tax assessor and the housing authority offices.
He saved up enough money to buy a used truck but eventually had to sell that as well. Cody refers to that time as “something he just had to do.”
For his mother, losing his father and trying to help the family made him become a man far sooner than most.
“To me it made him have to grow up and become a man sooner,” Sandra said. “I know he was hurting but he did it for us. He wanted to be the one to step in and be there for me and his brother and sister. I know there were times that it wasn’t easy for him, but he did it anyway. He became a man early.”
For the long haul
Responsibility would play a significant role in Cody’s decision to remain in school.
Cody found out he was going to be a father in the hours leading up to NSU’s season opener at Texas Tech back in 2012. It was a moment that changed his life.
“It was moving,” Cody said. “We were in the hotel and my ex-girlfriend told me. I already had so many other things on my mind about the game, but I wasn’t scared at all. I just felt that God was blessing me. Now everything matters. It is no longer I. It made me want to be a better person.”
Part of being a better man was providing for his daughter, just like his father had done. For a brief moment that meant he considered possibly leaving Natchitoches and returning home to get a full-time job.
His mother squashed that idea immediately.
“When I picked up the phone she said ‘you are not quitting school and you are going to continue playing football. If that means that I have to take care of your kid then I will do that until you graduate.’”
“I told him don’t quit school,” Sandra said. “Because if you quit school then you are not going to be able to provide for her like you could provide if you did finish school. So you need to get your education and get yourself right so you can be a better father for her.”
Cody stayed in school and now is only a semester away from getting a degree that will enable him to provide for his daughter for years to come. His daughter also has given him additional motivation.
“It is the little things,” Cody said. “I really never knew what that meant until I had her. I remember one day I had a terrible practice. I dropped like three passes in a row. I was so pissed off and then I got on the phone with her and she was just smiling and I wasn’t upset anymore. She means the world to me.”
That doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been difficult emotionally for Cody.
Even though he gets to see his daughter as much as he wants during the summer, she comes with his mom to home games and they video chat every day, leaving his daughter to go back to school still breaks his heart.
“It is one of the hardest things that I have ever had to do in my life,” said Cody, who admits to spoiling his daughter. “Anytime it is time to leave it is ‘daddy! daddy!,’” Cody said. “It took me a little while to understand that my sacrifices right now are going to better her life. As much as it hurts me I know that I have to do it.”
By accepting that, Cody believes that the man who outran him to the truck that day all those years ago would be beaming with pride.
“I take care of my business and that’s what my dad was all about,” Cody said. “He loved me and mom and my brother and my sister. I think he would be very proud of what I have done and what I am going to be doing in the future.”