In the past four years, one name has reverberated through the college lacrosse world, becoming synonymous with unstoppable.
And that name is Myles Jones.
Without being a flashy attackman or impenetrable defender, Jones has become a transformative figure in the lacrosse community as a prominent role model out of the midfield. That’s in part because the senior has shattered the norm of the game, shining as an African-American star in a sport that consisted of just 1.9 percent African-American players in 2009-10, according to an NCAA study.
“I know it’s a big responsibility, but it’s something that I think about all the time,” Jones said last month. “I knew that it’s very attention-grabbing, obviously, being an African-American male. Playing at the level that I’ve been playing at the past few years, you know it’s going to grab attention and a lot of kids are going to want to emulate the things I do. I think of it as being a great role model first, and finish out my career here before I take the responsibility of changing the game and taking the game to a new level post-college.”
Although Jones is certainly not the first African-American superstar in the sport—former Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown played at Syracuse in the mid-1950s when he was not outrunning opponents on the gridiron and Kyle Harrison won the Tewaaraton Award as the national player of the year as a senior at Johns Hopkins in 2005—his success for the Blue Devils has changed the way many view the ever-growing sport.
Since he arrived in Durham to join Duke head coach John Danowski’s squad, Jones has become the new face of the game. After winning two national titles, earning numerous postseason honors and being selected first overall in January’s Major League Lacrosse draft by the Atlanta Blaze, Jones has turned the game into his own playground. Earlier this season, Jones became the first Duke midfielder to surpass 100 goals in program history, and currently sits eighth in points with 212, seventh in assists with 94 and 12th in goals with 118.
“The one thing about Myles is that he’s a super personable guy and really takes time to talk to everyone and get to know fans,” senior Deemer Class said. “[Being a transformative figure is] not something that he really keys on or lets bother him…but he always does a great job of engaging fans and making sure with us he knows it’s a group effort. Myles has never had a problem if anyone is focusing on him too much, letting that get to his head. He’s always been even-keeled and he’s a great teammate.”
Jones plays the game with reckless abandon—the towering 6-foot-5, 240-pound bruiser is unlike any other player when the ball is in his stick. He does not pretend to finesse any of his motions or wait for an opening. Instead, the midfielder creates his own opportunities by lowering his shoulder and running directly at his defender—the patented bull dodge—and frees his hands to either rip a powerful shot through the pipes or find an open teammate.
The sheer athleticism in his movement and playing style is not surprising. Inside Lacrosse rated Jones among the top 10 players in the country throughout high school, but he was also a football and basketball standout at Walt Whitman High School. The Huntington, N.Y., native lettered in both sports for four years, becoming both a 1,000-point scorer on the court and all-league quarterback on the gridiron.
“My style of playing is a mesh of two sports, basketball and football. Being able to lower your shoulder is more like football and running downhill is similar. Basketball, using similar [moves like] crossover to split dodge, roll dodge to a spin move in basketball,” Jones said. “Those athletic tools I grew up with are just translated to your game in playing lacrosse, and it’s made it a lot easier for me to excel playing midfield, especially when teams slide, I can roll out of double teams and I can scan the field like in playing [the] quarterback or guard position that I played growing up.”
After starting just five games his freshman season, Jones made 16-of-20 starts on the first midfield line as a sophomore in what would become his breakout season for the Blue Devils. The midfielder garnered USILA second-team All-America, All-ACC and All-NCAA tournament team honors as a member of the highest-scoring midfield in program history, which included Class and then-senior Christian Walsh. The trio scored 97 goals, registered 79 assists and tallied 176 points as a unit, with Jones contributing 37 goals, 26 assists and 63 points of his own.
Class has grown alongside Jones ever since they arrived in Durham in 2012 and reached the 100-goal milestone March 5 against Harvard, just a week after his classmate. As another key component of the 2014 midfield line, the Baltimore native started in all 20 games and scored 65 points that season. With their collegiate careers in the books at the conclusion of this season, Class will join Jones with the Blaze next season after being selected 10th in the 2016 draft.
“We got to know each other throughout freshman year. We didn’t play on the same line to start and then as we got more comfortable on our own, just playing college lacrosse, we started to build up our skills,” Class said. “Then sophomore year we had a great senior leader on the midfield in Christian Walsh and he really took both of us under his wing and us three as a group really grew together throughout some tough games. I think those tough games early on sophomore year really cemented that bond that we have, and then from there we’ve just been growing together and playing off each other.”
With three more games left in the regular season before the ACC championship semifinals April 29 in Kennesaw, Ga., Jones has not shown any signs of slowing down. In Saturday’s 17-16 overtime loss against then-No. 17 North Carolina, Jones tied a program single-game record with 11 points—five goals and six assists—a week after Class notched a career-best seven goals in an overtime win against then-No. 5 Syracuse.
But as the postseason looms, it is business as usual for the Blue Devil standout.
“I’m going to keep doing what I’ve always done,” Jones said. “Let the game come to me. Play one play at a time, one moment at a time and hopefully all of the chips fall into place.”
Ryan Hoerger contributed reporting.
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