Coach Donnie Jones is tacking Stetson University’s men’s basketball team, which he took over as the head coach of in 2019, to the March Madness tournament this year, a remarkable turnaround from the team’s dismal record from when he took over in 2019. Helping get him there has been his remarkable focus on prayer, about which he is highly intentional.
Such is something Coach Jones makes clear on his social media, posting about prayer frequently, and which he made clear in a 2020 podcast interview with Sports Spectrum in which he spoke about his faith and coaching the Hatters.
During the interview, Joens spoke about helping the players build their character, including spiritually, telling Sports Spectrum, “I’ve been blessed to be around some great character guys, some coaches who understood how to build people first, which become teams. Our whole focus has been from the individual and growing guys individually, socially, spiritually, and growing them physically.”
Continuing, he commented on how he sees everything through the lens of his committed faith in Jesus Christ. That faith was particularly developed when he met Roger Adams, who was with Nations of Coaches, a group that ministers to college basketball coaches like Mr. Jones. It was with Adams and Nations of Coaches that Mr. Jones said that he “really found his faith.”
Particularly, he found what he sees as being the “meaning of God” and how one’s faith and living it out can make a positive effect on the lives of others. He said, “I really found the true meaning of God and the impact it can have, not only on my life but in other peoples’ lives.”
Jones then noted how he takes prayer seriously, saying that he does his best to be intentional about it, as he knows that praying properly can help guide him through challenges. He said, “I’m intentional with it. I know that’s the strength that’s going to equip me through any challenge that’s coming. There’s nothing we can do ourselves … there’s only one person that can really get us through that.”
Further, he added that building a relationship with Jesus through prayer is highly important and requires intention, saying, “I think it’s important that every day it starts with us and our relationship there. I think you have to be intentional every day because there’s so many distractions. That’s what the devil wants to do — distract us, distort us, disturb us.”
Building on that, he described daily, intentional prayer as building one’s soul, saying, “If you’re not being intentional to feed your soul every day with what you’re reading and what you’re praying about, you’re not going to be equipped for what the daily battles bring to you.”
Posting about prayer around the time of that Sports Spectrum interview, Coach Jones wrote, “God Only Gives 3 Answers To Prayers: 1-Yes! 2-Not Yet! 3-I Have a Better Plan Coming! #FaithOverFear”