{"id":4509,"date":"2009-03-06T11:00:05","date_gmt":"2009-03-06T11:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/sports\/wilson-s-rick-jones-passes-away\/"},"modified":"2009-03-06T11:00:05","modified_gmt":"2009-03-06T11:00:05","slug":"wilson-s-rick-jones-passes-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wilson-s-rick-jones-passes-away","title":{"rendered":"Wilson’s Rick Jones Passes Away"},"content":{"rendered":"

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After battling leukemia for the last few years, Rick Jones passed away on Tuesday.  <\/span>Jones was a fixture in the water polo scene both locally, and on the national scene, for four decades.  <\/span>In 1968 he took over as the head coach of the Jordan water polo team, where he coached for four seasons before moving to Poly in ’72.  <\/span>He was at Poly for six years, winning the league title in `1976—in ’78, he moved to Wilson, where he spent the next thirty years of his life, in one capacity or another.  <\/span>As the coach of the water polo team, he won league titles in all but one season, and a CIF title in 1981 (he also won CIF coach of the year that season). <\/span><\/p>\n

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Rick also served as Wilson’s athletic director for a number of years, which is how many came to know him.  <\/span>“I met him because he was involved in the hiring process when I came on as an assistant,” says Bruins football coach Mario Morales.  <\/span>“I respected him tremendously—he was always the guy who’d remind everyone what the right thing to do was.  <\/span>More importantly he was a good friend, a good guy to talk to, and he’d always make you laugh.”<\/p>\n

Outside of Long Beach, Jones was better-known for his association with the national water polo program.  <\/span>For fourteen years (1977-1990) he was a team manager, and he served as Vice President of US Water Polo from 1984-1990.<\/b><\/p>\n

“Rick was a devoted family man, coach, mentor and friend. He was passionate about the sport and a true friend to all. He gave his own time to truly care for the athletes he coached. I will greatly miss his smile, laugh and his genuine friendship,” said Jody Campbell, Jones’ friend and a Water Polo Olympian from the 1984 and 1988 Games, in a quote from the US Water Polo web site<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rick Jones will surely be missed by a Wilson campus that just recently said goodbye to co-principal Diane Brown.  <\/span>He leaves behind his wife of 33 years, Maria, and two children, Lexi and Taylor.  <\/span>We haven’t yet heard whether there will be a public memorial service, similar to the one held for Brown, but we will post a notice when we get an update.<\/p>\n

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Water polo legend and longtime Moore League coach Rick Jones died of leukemia on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-4509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4509"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=4509"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}