BATON ROUGE – LSU men’s basketball coach Johnny Jones appeared on the podcast “Capital Games” Thursday to discuss the recent events in Baton Rouge.
“Capital Games” is a presentation of ESPN Radio and ABC News and is hosted by ESPN’s Andy Katz and Rick Klein of ABC News.
Jones has had to see the events of the past few weeks in Baton Rouge from several different venues as college coaches in July have been traveling Wednesday through Sunday each week under NCAA rules to view recruits.
When asked about the mood of the city, Jones said: “It’s been extremely tough. One, unfortunately for me my job in July has taken me out of town and I haven’t had a chance to spend a lot of time there. During the day or two that I have had chances to spend, we obviously had to meet with the players and families and I had a chance to speak at the (Louisiana high school) coaches association just this past Tuesday. We are trying to touch as many lives as we possibly can … We are just trying to make sure in some fashion we can unify a great city.”
Katz and Klein discussed several topics including when Jones was a player and thoughts his former head coach Dale Brown instilled in him when he was an assistant coach for the Tigers.
Jones did impart an optimistic tone for the place that he now calls home.
“There are a lot of great people and a lot of high-quality people in the city of Baton Rouge and we want that to be a special place,” he said. “I think through our elected officials, the ministers and all the people that are there we will get back on solid footing, but I can certainly tell you it has been tough for the last two weeks.”
The complete podcast is available at: http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=17120790.