AMBOY — Gary Jones is your prototypical old-school football coach. And his is a year-round vocation that was long foreseen.

Back in 1968, when the eighth-graders at Amboy Junior High School were asked what they want to be when they grow up, Jones wrote “football coach”  at the top of his sheet.

He took over as the Clippers’ defensive coordinator in 1976, immediately after his playing days ended with the exchange of a physical education degree at Eureka College. Having taken over as head coach in 1994, suffice to say he’s drawn more X’s and O’s than a lifelong hopeless romantic.