Carmen Jones
New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame
Basketball, 1982-90
McMain Magnet HS/Tulane
Inducted: 2024
Photo Courtesy of Tulane University.
From her earliest days, Carmen Jones enjoyed playing sports. She and her brother Herbert Jr., who is one year older, were best friends and did it all – from tennis to basketball to tackle football. But from her earliest days, while she had fun playing sports, Jones’ desire was to be better every day. That drive resulted in her becoming one of the greatest all-around basketball players in New Orleans history and now a member of the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame.
After her earliest days playing on the Uptown streets and playgrounds with her brother; she moved into organized sports and quickly learned that she had ability – including when she starred on boys teams or played up three and four grades with girls. In middle school, she won her first championship (a city tournament in basketball), and in high school, she established herself as a star at Eleanor McMain Magnet School. A college career to be remembered at Tulane would follow. Throughout her life, the lessons instilled in her by her parents, Paula and Herbert Jones, stayed with her.
“High standards were in our family,” Jones said. “In whatever you’re doing, you give 100%...or more! You can be ordinary, or you can be extraordinary. I always wanted to be extraordinary.
“I also went to Bible study classes and had some great leaders that had God’s spirit in them. Their influence made a major impact on me. I always wanted to be a better person with good character and a positive nature. I was very lucky to have great experiences with great mentors.”
Jones had established herself as an elite athlete early, but her legendary career nearly hit a permanent roadblock in high school – McMain didn’t have high school varsity sports. After much cajoling from Jones and her talented teammates, and despite not having a gym of its own, McMain agreed to start athletic programs from scratch.
“Nobody expected us to do anything,” Jones remembered. “But the first two years in basketball, we were always in the top three in the city. And in other sports, we kept improving. All of us on the teams had a kind of resiliency about us. And we all went from sport to sport.”
Not only did the McMain teams improve quickly, but Jones developed into a star in whatever she attempted – she was a two-time all-state selection in basketball (for coach Joyce Gill), a two-time state champion in track (for legendary coach Zachary Winfield), an all-district selection in volleyball, and a National Honor Society student.
Her junior year in basketball (1984-85), she averaged 21.6 points per game and led McMain to a 26-2 record and the state quarterfinals. And in her senior year (1985-86), she averaged 29 points, 10 rebounds, and five assists while leading McMain to an 18-2 record. She was the Class 2A state MVP, the Metro Small Schools MVP, the District 11-AA MVP, and she played in the LHSAA All-Star Game.
After her junior season of basketball, she joined the track and field team and led McMain to the Class 2A state title in track and field by winning the state championship in the 400-meter dash and running on the district and regional championship 4x400 team.
“I still remember winning the quarter mile at state,” Jones said “I was in lane 1, so I was behind everybody for most of the race. I was trailing, but in my head, I felt like I could do it the whole time [even though the favorite hadn’t lost a quarter-mile race in two years]. The last 10 yards, I caught up and I won it at the tape.”
As a senior, she won the district and regional championship and finished third in the state in the 100-meter hurdles. She also ran a leg of the state champion 4x400 relay.
She was selected as the Times-Picayune/States-Item Female Prep Athlete of the Year as both a junior and senior.
After her outstanding McMain career, Jones had earned the opportunity to continue her basketball career at the neighborhood college – Tulane University. While Tulane featured a campus through which she had ridden her bike many times and a library in which she and her high school classmates would do research and work on projects, it was not seen as attainable to many in the neighborhood.
“Being a young minority kid in New Orleans, it wasn’t like Tulane was reaching out to you.” Jones remembered. “To have them reach out and say they wanted me, it had a huge impact on my decision to go there. To have a scholarship to handle the financial side and for my family to be able to easily watch my games, it was amazing.”
Photo Courtesy of Tulane University.
Jones may have been physically under-sized upon her arrival at Tulane, but her confidence wasn’t affected by joining the college basketball ranks.
“There were four senior guards when I was a freshman,” she said. “I was like, ‘I don’t know which one of you it’s going to be, but one of you is going to the bench.’”
Head coach Joline Matsunami told Jones that she usually didn’t play freshman, but during early season scrimmages Jones quickly proved she wouldn’t be riding the bench. If Matsunami didn’t have plans to play a freshman, she sure didn’t expect one to start, but after 10 games coming off the bench, Jones cracked the starting lineup. She wouldn’t come off the bench again in her career.
“When Carmen joined the team, I thought she was exactly what we needed,” said Stacey Gaudet-Berry, a senior for Jones’s freshman year who graduated as Tulane’s all-time leading scorer and is also a member of the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame. “She was the spark we needed; she was passionate and locked in and a fierce competitor. And she proved herself over and over again. She was a great teammate on and off the court.”
Following her four-year career with the Green Wave, Jones dominated the school’s record book – she was No. 1 in rebounds (744), No. 1 in steals (315), No. 2 in scoring (1,876), No. 2 in field goals (723), No. 2 in free throws (380), and No. 3 in assists (367). Over 30 years after her career ended, she still ranks in the top 10 in 11 career categories (including fourth all-time in scoring) and eight single-season categories for the Green Wave. She still holds the Tulane records for career steals and single-season scoring average (24.6 ppg in 1989-90) and her 43 points versus Alabama in 1990 are the single-game record. She remains the only Green Wave women’s basketball player to score 40 points in a game.
Her top on-court memories from her Tulane career include the 43-point effort against Alabama, a near quadruple-double during her junior season (missed by just two assists), and a legendary finish against New Orleans rival Xavier as a senior.
“I really didn’t want to lose that game,” Jones said. “I had a good first half, but the string came out of my shorts in the second half and they kept falling down; I wasn’t comfortable at all. They hit a shot to go up three with about five seconds left. I took the in-bounds and then a couple dribbles and hit a three-pointer with one second left – and they fouled me! I hit the free throw and we won [52-51].”
She also takes great pride in an honor she earned as a freshman when her teammates selected her as a team captain.
“That was a really amazing feeling,” Jones said. “And it meant a lot to me to be a captain. It meant I had to look out for everybody and really advocate for the team. Not just on the court, but to make sure we were treated right off the court. Title IX was talked about a lot and I worked very hard to make sure we had what we needed. Tulane did well with that; [director of athletics] Chet Gladchuk did a really good job with equalizing everything. It was important for me to let younger girls know to keep pushing for what they deserve.”
"Carmen was my visionary and conscience to ensure the advancement of women's hoops was always one of my foremost priorities,” said Gladchuk, who is now the director of athletics at the United States Naval Academy. “She was a true pioneer for women's sport at Tulane."
Jones, who also dabbled in track for the Green Wave, setting school records in the hurdles and being a part of the schools’ record-setting mile-relay squad, also credits Dr. Thomas Hill for his impact on her life and career. She said that Hill, who was an Olympic hurdler in 1972 and an assistant director of athletics at Tulane in the mid-1980s, provided a great example of leadership and excellence to her as a student. Hill was inducted into the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame in 1998.
Photo Courtesy of Tulane Athletics.
While there were some overseas professional basketball opportunities in 1990, there wasn’t a WNBA or anything equivalent. Jones continued basketball the way she started, by playing with the boys in various men’s leagues. She has also been a successful coach at the high school and AAU levels.
Jones, who raised and coached three children, Diana, Donald II, and Caitlen, is currently working at Dillard University. While her role at Dillard does keep her in touch with basketball as she develops a referee certification program, her primary work focuses on I.N.S.P.I.R.E., a reading incentive program. The non-profit, whose acronym stands for Increase Student Performance In Reading Excellence, is dedicated to increasing the quality of students’ reading by recognizing and rewarding their efforts. She has also worked as a courtside administrator for the NBA for the past five years.
“The number one thing I learned from sports is how to work together as a team,” Jones said. “You can’t get anywhere in life without being able to work with people – you need communication, accountability, teamwork, and passion. In sports, I just wanted to be better every day; whatever I needed to do to be better tomorrow is what I wanted to do. That has carried over from sports. I’m going to put in the time, the effort, to reach that point of improving, being better, every day.”
