Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/812511
J oe Augustine, who happens to be a friend of mine, is one of the handful of sportsmen who's bagged every species of upland gamebird in North America over his dogs—English setters, in Joe's case. It also happens that Joe and his dogs, four at last count, live in Manhattan. This is not where you expect a dead-serious bird hunter and his dogs to live, but Joe makes it work. In any event, one day early last winter Joe was walking his setters on Park Avenue (!) when he was buttonholed by a stranger who wanted to know about them. The guy, who had chiseled features and looked to be in his 50s, was rangy and obviously very fit, and while something about him seemed familiar, Joe couldn't quite place him. He spoke in a soft Southern drawl, and over the course of a conversation that stretched to nearly a half- hour the guy told Joe that he had a kennelful of bird dogs, setters and pointers both, back home in Louisiana; that he was in the lumber business there; and that he had a quail lease in West Texas where he turned his dogs loose as often as he could. He also mentioned that he trains them himself, and in contrast to the usual Texas gundogs by tom davis NFL LegeNd Bert JoNes is a hard-core quaiL huNter aNd Bird dog maN. MO of hunting from a tricked-out pickup or ATV (in Texas they call these rigs "quail buggies"), he does his bird hunting from the saddle of a walking horse. The guy hadn't mentioned his name, but the longer he talked, the more certain Joe was that he knew him from somewhere. Suddenly the light came on. "Are you Bert Jones?" Joe asked. "Yeah," he answered, "I am." Bert Jones! Consensus All-American quarterback at LSU, second overall pick by the Baltimore Colts in the 1973 NFL draft, the league's MVP in 1976, and one of the purest passers in the history of the game. There wasn't a throw he couldn't make; those of us of a certain age can still see him in our mind's eye, Number 7 in Baltimore blue, standing tall in the pocket and delivering one perfect spiral after another to his receivers. A touch pass in the flat to Lydell Mitchell. A bomb deep downfield to Roger Carr. A bullet to Raymond Chester across the middle. Bert Jones' accomplishments are a matter of record, but here's a factoid that really jumps out. During the decade of the 1970s, only three NFL quarterbacks eclipsed 100, the magical passer-rating benchmark, for an entire season: Roger Staubach, Kenny Stabler, and Bert Jones. The guy could play. And if you're thinking that the numbers aren't adding up here, Jones only looks 50ish. In point of fact, he's 65. I know this because shortly after their chance encounter on the mean streets of Manhattan, Joe called to tell me about it, rightly assuming that I'd not only remember Bert Jones but that 70 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S NFL great Bert Jones and his father, Dub, now 92, ride out for a morning's hunt on Bert's quail lease in West Texas. Below: Two of Jones' 13 setters and five pointers pin down a covey in the Texas brush country.