Tigers to retire Tre Jones’ No. 19 Friday

Demopolis High School will honor the memory of Tre Jones Friday night when the football program officially retires the No. 19 jersey.

Jones, who died in April when he drowned during a gathering of University of Alabama students on a riverboat in Tuscaloosa, was a member of the Demopolis High School Class of 2010 and played on the 2009 team that won the Class 5A state championship.

“I think everybody in this community knows what kind of young man Tre Jones was. He was a fantastic kid, always had a smile on his face. Always willing to do whatever we asked him to do. Probably the greatest compliment I could ever give a player is to be able to say he was a great teammate and Tre was a great teammate,” Demopolis head coach Tom Causey said of Jones, who started on defense for the Tigers. “It wasn’t about Tre. It was about Demopolis. That’s the epitome of what we’re looking for out of players each day, to make it about team and not about you. And that’s what Tre did. You love coaching those kind of guys. He wasn’t the most talented guy in the world, but he’d give you everything he had every second of the day he was there.”

The Tigers will retire Jones’ No. 19 during a ceremony before kickoff of Friday night’s home game against Citronelle. The ceremony will also feature a number of Jones’ former teammates.

“We’re going to do a small token to try to remember Tre and really to hope the future Demopolis players see that No. 19 and understand what it means. It’s not about Tre Jones the player so much as it is Tre Jones the selfless person,” Causey said. “We may go back to one day putting 19 on a kid. But, it’s got to be something special. When you see 19, it may be a defensive lineman or a defensive back or a quarterback or a receiver or a running back at some point down the line in the future, not any time soon. Make that be a special thing if you get to wear 19.”