Called by coach Sepp Huber as “the best natural scorer” he had ever coached, Ian Jones is Rhodes all-time greatest soccer player.
Ian Jones arrived at Rhodes in 1982. An honor student at Nashville’s Montgomery Bell Academy, Ian earned McDonalds’s and Adidas High School All-American recognition his senior year at MBA. He immediately made an impact at Rhodes, leading the 1982 squad to the College Athletic Conference title, when he scored seven goals in the conference tournament. He was voted to the All College Athletic Conference team his freshman year, an honor he would receive each of his four years on the team.
During Ian’s junior year, he broke the College Athletic Conference scoring record with his 57th goal. Ian was not through at goal fifty-seven. He kept scoring, and scoring, and scoring. He concluded his career with seventy-seven goals, which still stands as the Rhodes and Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference career scoring record. Ian was named both the team Most Valuable Player and the College Athletic Conference Most Valuable Player his senior year. In 1989 Ian’s #7 jersey was retired, the only men’s soccer jersey currently retired.
Upon graduating from Rhodes as an anthropology/sociology major, Ian played professional indoor soccer for the Memphis Americans. After earning an additional undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, medical school beckoned. In 1993, Ian earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Tennessee, graduating with honors. He currently serves as the Medical Director for the Vanderbilt University Hospital Emergency Department.
For the joy he gave Rhodes soccer fans, the friendship he provided to teammates, his dedication to the Lynx soccer program, and the model the provides as a successful student-athlete, Rhodes is honored to induct IAN DAVID JONES into the Rhodes Athletic Hall of Fame, this 25th day of October, 2002.
