Cal Jones - Death

Death

Cal Jones graduated with a 3.0 grade point average at Iowa. He was selected in the ninth round of the 1956 NFL Draft by the Detroit Lions, but refused to sign with the team as the NFL paid black players less than whites. Instead, he went to Canada and signed with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Western Interprovincial Football Union (WIFU). As a rookie with Winnipeg in 1956, Jones was named to the WIFU All-Star Team. The East–West All-Star Game in Vancouver would be Jones's final football game.

Iowa qualified for the Rose Bowl after the 1956 season. Frank Gilliam had sat out the 1955 season with a broken leg, so Gilliam was playing his final year for the Hawkeyes. Jones was to fly home to Winnipeg, gather a few possessions, and then fly to Pasadena to watch Gilliam in the Rose Bowl after the All-Star game.

On December 9, 1956, Jones overslept his scheduled morning flight from Vancouver, so he scheduled an afternoon flight to stop at Calgary then travel to Winnipeg. Cal Jones' flight on Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810, from Vancouver to Calgary crashed at Slesse Mountain, killing all 62 people aboard, including one football official and four players from the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

Gilliam and the rest of the Iowa Hawkeye team heard of Jones's death as they prepared for the 1957 Rose Bowl against Oregon State. The team dedicated Iowa's first Rose Bowl appearance to Cal's memory and won the game, 35–19. The team sent the game ball to Talitha Jones, Cal's mother in Steubenville.