Shaquille Jones often hears the voice of his late grandmother Gloria Jones as he goes about his business on a St. Ambrose campus he is certain she would have loved.
"She was a huge advocate for a one-on-one education in a smaller environment, to keep me concentrating on getting the fullest education I can," Jones, an SAU sophomore, said of the woman who raised him nearly from birth. "I know she would have loved this school. She probably would have volunteered here."
In 2010, Jones was a ninth-grade student living on the south side of Chicago when his grandmother died after a lengthy battle with cancer. He had never met his father and was long estranged from his mother, and, so, Jones quickly found himself among a growing number of teenagers who fit the legal definition of homeless.
Unwilling to leave Chicago to join siblings who were living with an aunt in Kentucky, Jones briefly stayed in Chicago with a friend of his grandmother. Eventually, he did what many homeless young people do-surfed from one friend's couch to that of another.
Shaquille Jones
Ultimately, he found long-term shelter thanks to his late grandmother's insistence that he prepare for college by applying to the Link Unlimited Scholars Foundation. The foundation matched him with mentors who would pay his tuition and expenses to attend Seton Academy, a private, Catholic high school in South Holland, Ill. The school offered the college prep curriculum on which his grandmother insisted.
When those mentors-Kai Bandele and Bernette Braden-learned young Shaquille had no home, they took him in for the duration of his high school years.
"Grandma arranged Seton Academy," Jones said. "I wanted to go to a public school. But it is amazing how it all played out. I don't think I would be here if it hadn't been for her making sure I got into that school."
It was during a college fair at Seton Academy that Jones, a three-time prep state qualifier in track and field, encountered then St. Ambrose admissions counselor Marcus Simpao '09, MCJ '11, himself a former Fighting Bees track athlete.
"Without ever seeing Shaq run, Marcus told me he was a kid who could help our program," said Dan Tomlin, '05, '10 MBA, head track and field coach. "Shaq is such a positive person. He is a leader. He is someone who has all the reasons in the world to have a chip on his shoulder and he doesn't."
Jones said he thanks God daily for his good fortune, but he also takes a little credit himself for overcoming adversity. "Every once in a blue moon, I get down," he said. "But I'm pretty positive. It's hard to put me down. Really hard."
Perseverance is a trait he learned from his grandmother, who he said earned a master's in criminal justice while working as a janitor at Chicago State University. The more he experiences life, the more Jones appreciates what his grandmother instilled in him.
"I am starting to see everything from her eyes now," he said. "She left me with a lot, mentally and spiritually. I know she is watching. That's why I have got to keep my act straight."
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