Brent Jones, the San Francisco 49ers’ legendary tight end, had guests at last Friday’s Peninsula Community Prayer Breakfast roaring with laughter with his on- and off-the-field trials and tribulations. But when the football jokes were done, Jones got serious with the sold-out audience of nearly 600 at Hyatt Rickeys in Palo Alto.
“I had a void in my life,” confessed Jones, now a CBS broadcaster. “I had sports, but that didn’t fill that void.”
In his youth, Jones went to meetings with a Christian group, Young Life. He described meetings as fun activities with the last 15 minutes devoted to talk about God. “As the year went on, I wanted to know more about what they said in those last 15 minutes,” he said. “I felt like they were talking about me.”
He asked the audience: “What is it you’re trying to put in that void? What is the foundation of your life?”
Part of three Super Bowl championships with the 49ers in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Jones said he and fellow players worked hard and sacrificed for the sake of their Super Bowl rings – only to feel hollow at the core.
“As great as it is, there’s devastation at the top of that (football) hill,” Jones said. “You get there and realize, it’s just a ring. Is that all it is? … You’re shaken.”
The Santa Clara University graduate used his faith to persevere through trying times, such as a car accident that injured both him and his wife, and knee and neck injuries that threatened to derail his career before he even played a down.
Flashing a broad smile, Jones had the breakfast audience enthralled with entertaining stories about life with the 49ers.
He recalled, as a wide-eyed youth making the team, being thrilled with the fact that Coach Bill Walsh knew his name. On the field, he found himself in the huddle with the likes of already-established stars Joe Montana and Roger Craig. He said to himself, “Whatever you do, don’t ask for their autograph.”
Montana threw a pass his way and Jones made a one-hand catch. Back in the huddle, Montana said, “Nice grab, No. 38.”
Name recognition wasn’t a problem for long.
Jones soon made the starting team and went on to a celebrated career with the 49ers.
He became the first tight end to catch 400 passes and was named to the National Football League’s all-pro team four times.
He also won the coveted Bart Staff Award for his character on and off the field.
Like Jones, opening speaker Marshall Heller talked of how her God saw her through difficult periods and gave her direction in her life.
The successful businesswoman and entrepreneur described how her renewed faith in God rescued her from a life of bulimia and anorexia.
“I would eat and purge,” she said of those dark days more than 30 years ago.
“My health deteriorated through my college years and my early marriage years.
“I was obsessed with food,” Heller said. “The symbol of success in those days was Twiggy (a popular 1960s fashion model who gave new meaning to the word skinny).”
A co-worker talked to her about Jesus Christ and gave her a book. She didn’t find time to read it until she caught pneumonia.
When she did, she came away “overwhelmed with a sense of love and forgiveness. I was a new person – born again.”
She and her husband John partnered on a succession of businesses, including a successful catering company, before exhaustion overcame them.
After a break, they looked to start a new business – but what? Heller said she found God steering them in subtle directions as she founded her next business, Mission City Coffee Roasting Company, right as the so-called “coffee craze” hit in the early 1990s.
The business was a hit, and last year, the two retired – “for now,” she added.
This year, Los Altos Prayer Breakfast merged with Straight Talk to put on the Peninsula Community Prayer Breakfast.
Straight Talk is a monthly faith lecture program for businesspersons that meets at Hyatt Rickeys.”
The Los Altos Prayer Breakfast has presented Good Friday speakers annually since 1994.
Initiated by a steering committee of couples from Los Altos and Los Altos Hills, the local group agreed to merge this year’s effort with Straight Talk to accommodate Jones’ travel schedule.
