Gaffney High interim head coach Dan Jones stresses some points to players during a practice session. “I know the pressure of Gaffney football. I experienced it when I played here and when I coached here,” he said. Back when he was wearing bell bottoms and polyester, Dan Jones, as a Gaffney High senior, was, though undersized, the scrappiest player on one of the best teams in school history.

Weighing a tad over 130 pounds as a defensive end, Jones was a tough, cerebral leader of the defense.

Now, more than 30 years later, Jones is coaching the Indians. His hair is decidedly gray and there’s a few extra pounds around the waist.

But there is one thing that hasn’t changed about Jones since his playing days at The Reservation: His love for his home town and for football.

“I grew up loving football,” said Jones, recalling as a youth the joy of putting on the replica jerseys of his football heroes Bart Starr and Johnny Unitas. “Part of it was my dad working with me.”

Jones, who was born and raised in the Draytonville community, has used those teachings of his youth and the trial and error of life to become head coach of the most storied prep program in the state.

“I know the pressure of Gaffney football,” Jones said. “I experienced it when I played here and when I coached here. But pressure is what you put on yourself. I’m the type of guy that I’m a competitor and I’ll put the pressure on myself.”

The Indians will be a reflection of Jones, a man who will push his players through a long, difficult practice but will also shower them with compassion that compels them to work even harder for him.

Childhood best friend Tim Childers knows Jones is the perfect fit for the job.

“Dan is as honest as the day is long,” said Childers, a Gaffney High football star who went on to play for Clemson. “He will demand a lot of the kids, but he does it in a respectful way. The kids will like playing for him.”

Childers also acknowledged Jones’ ultra-competitive nature.

“Pound for pound, he is the toughest person I ever knew. He’s tougher than a pine knot.“

Although Childers said Jones never mentioned coaching as a career choice in high school, Jones’ coaching life dates back to the early 1980s when he was enrolled at the University of South Carolina.

Lacking the measurables to play college football, Jones pursued a degree in physical education at USC.

As a college sophomore and still in his teens, Jones got a call from mentor Ellis Johnson, his former position coach at Gaffney High who had been named the new head coach at Spartanburg High School. Johnson, now the defensive coordinator at USC, asked Jones to become a member of the Vikings coaching staff. Jones, without hesitation, took the job and transferred to USCSpartanburg for a semester.

That experience convinced Jones that he found his calling.

“Ellis knew that I had a passion for the game and when I started college I knew I wanted to coach. (Ellis) asked me to coach the outside linebackers and that let me know that I was doing what I was supposed to do.”

After graduating from USC, Jones followed Johnson to Gardner-Webb as a graduate assistant.

Another coaching mentor and former Gaffney High coach, Bobby Carlton, hired him to become the defensive coordinator at Goose Creek.

After those coaching stops and a 4- year coaching hiatus owning a landscaping business with his brother wedged in, Jones returned to his alma mater in 1992 as the receivers coach under Joe Montgomery.

After a 2-year stint as the running backs and quarterbacks coach, Jones was moved to the defense, where players like Anthony Littlejohn, Jeff Littlejohn, Trey Tate, Rocky McIntosh and Dory Brown thrived under his instruction.

When Phil Strickland replaced Montgomery in 2003, Jones was promoted to defensive coordinator — a position he held, ironically enough, at Goose Creek when Strickland served as the team’s secondary coach.

As defensive coordinator, Jones has orchestrated a fast, physical collection of athletes.

He admits he would have been content serving as the team’s defensive coordinator for his entire coaching career, but a series of unexpected events, including the sudden resignation of Strickland, lifted Jones into the role of head coach.

Jones and his family were vacationing in Myrtle Beach when he learned the news.

“I was driving on (Hwy.) 17 going to eat when (superintendent) Miss (Kim) Bagwell called me and said the board unanimously named me the interim head coach.”

Jones said he had a variety of emotions after hearing from Bagwell.

“I wanted the job because I felt we had a chance to be successful,” he said. “And if I got the job, it would be our team because we’d keep the coaching staff together.”

Then, he was flooded with a feeling of anxiety, knowing the importance of maintaining the tradition of excellence, raised to an even higher level by his predecessor who won three state championships in seven years.

“That’s almost every other year,” Jones said. “(Strickland) set the goal.”

Jones is setting the bar just as high.

“What I want is to get Gaffney football where it has always been. There isn’t any reason why we couldn’t win a state championship every two or three years.”

As a man who has seen, lived and experienced Gaffney High football for nearly 50 years, he has complete belief in his methods, an unyielding work ethic and allowing his coaches and players to flourish without interference from him.

“I don’t want to take the game out of the kids’ hands with a decision that I make,” he said. “If we are going to onside kick, it’s going to be because that’s what we need to do. Whether we win or not will be because of the effort of the kids, not some decision I made. We have good enough athletes that we should let them win or lose the game.”