Cowboys’ call, towels, changed Andy Jones’ perspective

3:27 PM ET

IRVING, Texas — Andy Jones did not have a chance to listen to the full commencement speech given by Mayor Lenny Curry at Jacksonville University on April 30.

He had to take a call from Dallas Cowboys wide receivers coach Derek Dooley.

“I had to walk out, and they weren’t trying to let me out and stuff,” remembered Jones, who earned a business administration degree. “I ended up getting around them, because I was like, ‘I have to talk to Coach Dooley.’”

Dooley was calling Jones to emphasize the Cowboys’ interest in signing him should he not be drafted. Jones talked to Dooley a number of times during the draft process and liked what he heard.

Jones might not have heard all of Curry’s words, but the Jacksonville mayor’s message had already been received.

Derek Dooley’s call interrupted Andy Jones’ graduation, but the Cowboys undrafted free agent receiver didn’t mind. Matthew Visinsky/Icon Sportswire

“If you’re heading in a direction that you don’t want to go, that does not evoke passion, my advice is to — and parents may hate me for this — choose your road,” Curry told the graduating class, according to the university’s Wave Magazine. “Walk your path. Flip it all upside down. Follow your passion and your dreams … Don’t live anyone else’s version …

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