Jones (left) was next to Jim Delany to celebrate five years on the air with the Big Ten Network. The pair became friends following a golf outing in the early 2000s in Naples, Fla.fox sports
I asked former Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany for his best Larry Jones story. This is what he shared:
Seven or eight years ago, Larry and I competed in what we called a Father’s Day Olympiad. We set up a tennis match — Larry had played high school tennis, so he had an advantage there. We played basketball — I had played more than him. (Editor’s note: Delany played for the University of North Carolina in the 1960s). And then we finished up with golf. We were both even on the golf course.
Larry beat me in tennis, 6-4. It was more competitive probably than he thought it would be. I beat him in H-O-R-S-E, though that also was more competitive than I thought it would be.
Then we got to the golf. I started fast and got way up on him. He made a charge and tied it up going into the last hole.
It was late in the day when we teed it off on the last hole, and were hitting right into the setting sun. We both hit pretty good drives, but we couldn’t see where our balls went. Larry asked if I saw his ball, and I told him that I thought it went down the left side of the fairway.
We walked down the left side of the fairway and couldn’t find his ball. So Larry had to take a penalty stroke. We both hit onto the green and both two-putted, which meant that I won the hole and the Father’s Day Olympiad.
At the end of our round, my son, who played with us, had to go back to the previous hole to pick up a wedge he accidentally left. As he walked down the right side of the fairway, he found Larry’s ball.
To this day, Larry thinks that I intentionally said his ball went to the left, when it went to the right. He wanted some sort of remedy. But there was no remedy. The match was over. That was it. I won and he lost, and to this day, he never lets me forget it.
