George 'Snoozy' Jones, UAB fixture and beloved campus bookstore owner, passes away

Everybody on the UAB campus knew Snoozy. They knew the green blazer, the bookstore on 11th Avenue South, the voice that could fill a room and the nickname that stuck from infancy. George Francis "Snoozy" Jones — original UAB football coach, campus bookstore owner, Hall of Fame high school athletics figure and tireless champion of Blazer football — died Monday. He was 91.

Jones was a fixture in UAB's athletic history from the program's earliest days. He coached and helped fund the club football team in 1989 and 1990, then served on head coach Jim Hilyer's original NCAA staff from 1991 to 1994 as the Blazers moved from Division III to Division I-AA on their way to Division I-A. UAB went 28-12-2 in those four seasons. Jones served as assistant head coach under Hilyer, and his contributions went far beyond the field. He was part of an experienced staff with high-level backgrounds in the pros and at major colleges that gave UAB professionalism and credibility in those formative years.

"He was the glue that helped tie everything together through both Jim and Watson," former UAB associate athletic director for football Dennis Rancont told Diehard Sports Network, referring to head coaches Jim Hilyer and Watson Brown. "He was that nexus that held things together, buffered both of them so that the people who worked for them could tolerate them. Snoozy was a very special man who took great pride in everything he did, from coaching track and field in Montgomery to his time at UAB working club and Division III to being Watson and Coach [Gene] Bartow's true confidant in dealing with a lot of things internally in the state."

Rancont said Jones understood how to navigate the politics of building a program from nothing.

"He understood in all situations what the end goal was, which was to move things forward without damaging what we had," Rancont said. "What we had was not a whole lot. We held football together with bubble gum and shoestrings from the beginning of the club years well into Division I, and making sure the right shoestring was tied to the right shoe was Snoozy."

He later became one of the program's most vocal defenders when UAB football was shut down and disbanded in 2014 — and one of the loudest voices in the community uprising that reversed the decision and brought the program back.

Off the field, Snoozy's College Bookstore was the campus institution. Jones, his wife Agatha, their son George Jr. and daughter-in-law Virginia opened the store in 1983 on 11th Avenue South near campus. Agatha served as president of the business, and for 34 years the store was the go-to spot for textbooks, Gang Green gear and alumni apparel. The store was the official retail outlet for UAB's Gang Green and the UAB National Alumni Society.

The bookstore and football overlapped in ways the family still laughs about. George Jr. recalled that during store meetings, his father was normally locked in — taking notes, asking questions, full of comments. But during the UAB football coaching years, that changed.

"Daddy would look like he was taking notes," George Jr. told Diehard Sports Network. "Usually he has a gazillion comments but then we'd look over and he was working on football plays."

"He was truly dedicated and committed to helping the kids," former UAB associate athletic director Joe Davidson told Diehard Sports Network. "He understood Coach Bartow's vision for UAB Athletics and especially football and was willing to do what he could to get it off the ground and make it work and be successful. I first met Snoozy when I was a freshman at Thompson High School and he was selling for Champion, and he never ever changed. Snoozy was so committed to his family, his faith, his businesses and whatever he touched. He will be missed."

"Those of us who were part of UAB athletics in the formative years of football will remember Snoozy fondly," former UAB assistant sports information director Chris Pika wrote on X. "May his memory be a blessing to his family and those who knew him."

"Snoozy loved Birmingham, UAB, the UAB football program, and he was always a big help and at a minimum, an encouraging voice for UAB football players and supporters," Lee Miller, a Blazer kicker from 1995 to 1997, told Diehard Sports Network. "He was a good man."

Former UAB football player Houston White shared a story on Facebook that captured the kind of man Jones was. White recalled going to Jones one spring about sponsoring football players in intramural softball. If Jones could get them the shirts, they'd name the team "Snoozy's College Softball."

"He didn't hesitate and we played for two years with that name and I still have the t-shirts," White wrote. "Coach Snoozy Jones was a great one!"

"Snoozy was one of a kind who loved sports and loved the kids that played sports even more," former Birmingham News sports writer and Alabama High School Athletic Association administrator Ron Ingram wrote on Facebook.

"Snoozy Jones was like your favorite uncle," former UAB running back Pat Green told the Dragon's Den podcast. Green, who played from 1991 to 1994, was the program's all-time leading rusher and touchdowns leader until Spencer Brown surpassed him in 2019 and 2020. "He looked after me. He was a fun guy to be around. He was always cutting up. I loved that man like my favorite uncle, and Agatha, his wife, was like my favorite auntie. I met her in the early days, and I loved the both of them."

Jones' path to Birmingham started in Montgomery, where he was born the youngest of six children.

"I was delivered by a midwife," Jones told The Over the Mountain Journal in 2012. "But since there were six kids, she stayed around and helped raise us. I must have slept a lot, because she called me Snoozy. My four brothers weren't going to let that go, and people have called me that ever since."

He attended Sidney Lanier High School, where he was a standout in football and counted future NFL legend Bart Starr as a teammate. He earned a scholarship to Virginia Tech, then coached by Frank Moseley, a protege of Paul Bryant. He later earned a teaching certificate from Huntingdon College.

Jones began his coaching career at Bellingrath Junior High School in Montgomery. In three years, his teams went 24-2 in football, 40-6 in basketball and won the city track title. He returned to Lanier in 1961, where he took over the track and field program and assisted in football and basketball.

His philosophy was simple.

"The most important thing was to have a coach that was really interested in track and not just drawing a supplement check," Jones told The Over the Mountain Journal. "I thought if the coach showed interest, more kids would come out for track and we could get the numbers up."

Under his leadership, Lanier's track teams won two outdoor state titles, one indoor championship and one cross country title, and produced a state decathlon champion. NCAA champion Richmond Flowers, who later starred at the University of Tennessee and played in the NFL, set the national high school record in the high hurdles as a member of Jones' track team. While Jones assisted in football and basketball, the Poets won five state football championships — two mythical titles determined by polls in 1961 and 1964, and three playoff championships from 1966 to 1968 — along with four basketball state titles.

He also taught American and world history at Lanier.

"I really enjoyed that because it gave me an opportunity to reach a different type of kids, the types that weren't athletes," Jones told The Over the Mountain Journal. "I wanted to help build kids into adults who would be good spouses, good parents and good members of society."

Jones left coaching in 1969 to pursue a career in athletic wear sales, which took him across the state and eventually led him to UAB's campus. During that time, he became a football, basketball and track official at the high school and college levels, a career that lasted until 1986. He co-founded the Mid-State Alabama Officials Association and worked as an umpire for Southeastern Conference games throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

"As a native of Alabama, I couldn't work Alabama or Auburn," Jones told The Over the Mountain Journal. "But I called a lot of LSU, Tennessee and Georgia games."

He later served as a team host for the AHSAA Super 6 Football Championships and as coordinator for the Final 48 Basketball Championships. In 2012, Jones was inducted into the Alabama High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame.

"It's a real honor and one I didn't expect," Jones told The Over the Mountain Journal. "But it's really a tribute to all the great people I worked with and the wonderful kids that I was blessed to be able to coach."

Through it all, Jones remained a passionate advocate for UAB athletics. When the university shut down the football program, Jones was among the loudest voices pushing to bring it back.

"Football was wanted. Football is needed," Jones said in a video posted to the Snoozy's Bookstore YouTube channel after the program was shut down. "It just gives a complete college experience. The program is for the kids. They want to play football. These kids here want to play football, but they wouldn't be here without it."

He argued that UAB was being held back by forces outside Birmingham.

"The program is being micromanaged from 60 miles away," he said in the video. "Common sense says that's not right. UAB is the economic engine for Birmingham, for Jefferson County, for the counties surrounding Jefferson County. We need to continue and grow, and we need the opportunity to make our own decisions."

When Jones retired and closed Snoozy's College Bookstore in December 2017, the UAB community mourned the loss of a gathering place that had served as the campus living room for more than three decades. UAB purchased the property for $4.2 million, and the 11,000-square-foot building was renovated into the university's Honors College and Spencer Honors House in a $3.55 million project.

The family's retail legacy continues at Snoozy's Kids, a specialty toy and gift shop owned by George Jr. in Mountain Brook's Crestline Village. But those who were there know what was lost.

"He did something incredibly common everywhere else but no one else did for UAB: he sold merchandise. He sold good merchandise," UAB alum and former student body president Ralph Harbison told Diehard Sports Network. "The name brand programs had all that in spades. No one did that for us but him. And when Snoozy closed, we lost more than a bookstore."

"Snoozy started as a rogue store driving down prices by selling used books," Chuck Tuggle, a former UAB offensive lineman and one of the founding members of the club team that would eventually spawn NCAA football on the Southside, told Diehard Sports Network. "The university bookstore hated him. I was his elevator in his original store. I hauled books up and downstairs."

Jones' impact on UAB athletics is also honored through the George "Snoozy" Jones Scholarship, an endowed athletic scholarship at the university.

Jones was preceded in death by his wife of 65 years, Sarah Agatha Cauthen Jones, who passed away in 2021. He is survived by his children George Francis Jones Jr. (Virginia), Randal Cauthen Jones (Rosalind), Rebecca Jones Rivenbark (Bill) and Suzanne Jones Wright (Jeff), along with numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

A public Celebration of Life service is set for July 28 from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at the Country Club of Birmingham. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Monday Morning Quarterback Club of Birmingham or the Salvation Army.