Trinity Academy’s Dan Jones a pitcher with an eye on many targets

Dan Jones goes to great lengths to avoid boredom.

Instead of picking up his phone or turning on Netflix, Jones, a senior on Trinity Academy’s baseball team, conquers major, time-consuming challenges with help from divine intervention.

Jones’ latest achievement is earning his pilot’s license, which happened after the idea was spawned in the fall.

“My football season ended early, and it was like mid-October, and I really didn’t have anything to do,” Jones said. “The way God wired me, I just can’t sit around and do nothing. My dad got his pilot’s license in college, and I thought it would be another challenge to take down.”

Jones’ dad, David, works in aviation and connected his son with an instructor, Brent Storrer, who had more than 2,000 hours of experience. Suddenly, the challenge became an adventure.

Not that it felt that way all the time. Jones, probably because of his family’s background and knowledge of planes, grasped flying pretty quickly. Part of that was managing and embracing the nerves that come with the unpredictability of being in the air.

It’s a departure from baseball – another of Jones’ recent challenges, by the way – where calmness and a steady demeanor are often important facets of success.

“You want to stay alert, you never want to feel like you know what you’re doing, like comfortable,” Jones said. “You always want to be scanning around the sky and making sure you’re not going to run into someone, because every time you go up it’s going to be different.

“Right now, if I were to go up, I’d need to keep my eye on the fighter jets that have been flying all around Wichita. Around the holidays, you have to pay extra attention because that’s when a lot of people are flying in and out. Once you get up there, there’s no pulling over.”

Jones hasn’t had any close calls with midair collisions, but he has faced potential danger and escaped it because of alertness. During Jones’ first time practicing night landing, the plane lost electricity.

Jones declined Storrer’s help and landed the plane even though he could barely see the runway at Jabara Airport.

“My instructor asked me if I wanted him to take over,” Jones said. “I said no, because if it ever happens to me and I’m by myself, I want to know that I can do it. Once you do it, you’re just not nervous the next time it happens.”

Not all of Jones’ challenges are as daunting as flying. His return to baseball isn’t on the same scale, but it’s perhaps as impressive because he didn’t play during his first three years at Trinity.

Jones’ focus was on football, where he played quarterback. He didn’t want to injure his arm, so he stayed away from baseball, which he previously played in the summer. But football didn’t work out and Jones returned to baseball, where he has become a valuable member of the team as a pitcher and an outfielder.

“He’s a detail-oriented kid,” Trinity coach Bret Lentz said. “When I want something done right, I know I can count on him to either do it right or ask how to do it right.

“When he made up his mind that he was playing (baseball) in the spring … he instantly started getting pitching lessons. You see a drive in him to be as good as he can be. He’s always thinking, he’s always asking (questions). I don’t think it comes from a selfish nature, I think he just wants to be successful.”

Jones, who has made 160 landings and 100 hours in a 1964 Cessna 172 Skyhawk, is already thinking about his next grand accomplishment. He plans to build a rat rod, a type of custom car, with his brother from scratch.

Jones will take aviation research classes following baseball and plans on majoring in mechanical engineering in college. That’s probably as far as he’ll go in closing off any options.

“I’ve kind of conquered this. I got my pilot’s license, that’s something I did, I beat the challenge,” Jones said. “I’m kind of ready to move on to the next challenge. I don’t know quite what that is yet.

“The reason I like (engineering) so much is because every day there’s something new, there’s something that needs to be fixed, there’s something that needs to be improved.”

This story was originally published April 27, 2017 at 10:11 AM with the headline "Trinity Academy’s Dan Jones a pitcher with an eye on many targets."