For generations of Texas Tech football fans, the name “Jones” has meant far more than a building.
It meant Saturdays in Lubbock. It meant the Masked Rider charging onto the field, the Goin’ Band playing in the stands and the Texas wind whipping through a stadium packed with Red Raiders. It was a name that connected different eras of Texas Tech football, from decades when the program was fighting for relevance to the current era of massive investments and enormous expectations.
That’s why the decision to rename the stadium Galaxy Stadium has been so difficult for fans to swallow.
And now Texas Tech is trying to keep “The Jones” alive by giving that name to the student section.
Sorry, but that’s not going to do it.
Thursday, Tech announced that the student section at Galaxy Stadium will now be known as “The Jones,” borrowing the nickname Red Raider fans have used for the entire stadium for years.
You can understand what the university is trying to accomplish. Texas Tech knows the Jones name matters. It knows fans aren’t ready to simply toss decades of tradition aside because a corporation wrote a gigantic check.
But this solution feels contrived.
Worse, it feels like a demotion.
Clifford Jones was the third president of Texas Tech and such an important figure in West Texas that during his lifetime he was known as “West Texas’ No. 1 citizen.” He donated $100,000 toward the construction of the Red Raiders’ football stadium, and in 1947, three years after the facility opened, his name was attached to it.
It stayed there for nearly eight decades.
Even when corporate naming rights entered the picture, Jones remained. The stadium became Jones SBC Stadium and later Jones AT&T Stadium. Companies came along, checks were written and names changed, but “Jones” remained the constant.
That was the right balance.
It allowed Texas Tech to generate revenue without erasing the history of the facility.
That’s why so many Red Raiders have wondered why the new stadium couldn’t simply be called Jones Galaxy Stadium.
Of course, there may be contractual reasons preventing that. Galaxy Digital is paying Texas Tech $75 million over 15 years for the naming rights, and nobody should pretend that kind of money is insignificant.
College athletics has changed dramatically. Schools are looking everywhere for additional revenue, and Texas Tech has been one of the most aggressive athletic departments in the country when it comes to investing in football and competing in the modern financial arms race.
Seventy-five million dollars matters.
But history matters, too.
And calling the student section “The Jones” feels like an attempt to have it both ways without actually accomplishing either objective.
For starters, why does the student section need a name?
Some traditions happen organically. Raider Riot has become an important part of Texas Tech basketball because it grew out of the student body and remains largely student-driven.
That’s the key.
College traditions become meaningful because students and fans embrace them. They usually don’t become meaningful because administrators unveil a name and then spend years trying to convince everybody to use it.
It is difficult to imagine Texas Tech students walking into the stadium this fall and enthusiastically telling their friends, “Let’s get to The Jones.”
For decades, “The Jones” meant the whole stadium.
Everybody knows that.
Trying to redefine the term now and make it mean a specific collection of seats is going to be a tough sell, regardless of how often the athletic department puts the phrase on signs, social media graphics or promotional materials.
Instead of trying to manufacture a new meaning for an old nickname, Texas Tech should find a permanent and prominent way to honor Clifford Jones and his family.
Perhaps that means creating a Clifford Jones Memorial Park near the stadium.
The areas surrounding the Frazier Alumni Pavilion could potentially provide an opportunity for Tech to develop a gathering space celebrating Jones’ contributions to the university and West Texas.
Put a statue of Jones there.
Install historical markers explaining who he was, why his name was placed on the stadium and why generations of Red Raiders associated Texas Tech football with his name.
Make it a place where families gather before games. Make it part of the game-day experience. Most importantly, make it something that can’t disappear the next time a naming-rights agreement changes.
That’s only one idea. Surely there are people at Texas Tech with the creativity and resources to come up with something even better.
But whatever the university decides, Jones deserves something more significant than having his name reassigned to a student section.
There is also a larger lesson here about the collision between college football’s history and its increasingly corporate future.
Texas Tech isn’t wrong for pursuing money.
In today's college football, turning down $75 million in the name of nostalgia would be difficult to justify. Programs are spending enormous sums on facilities, coaching staffs, player acquisition and retention, and just about every other aspect of their operations.
Revenue matters more than ever.
Still, universities have to remember why their brands are valuable in the first place.
They are valuable because generations of people care deeply about them.
Galaxy Digital didn’t pay $75 million to put its name on just any building. It paid that money to put its name on a stadium filled with decades of history, memories and emotional attachment.
Clifford Jones is part of that history.
Taking his name off the building and then sticking “The Jones” on the student section doesn’t adequately recognize that.
The irony is that Texas Tech fans may solve the problem themselves.
Plenty of Red Raiders have already made it clear that they intend to continue calling the stadium Jones Stadium or “The Jones,” regardless of what the official signage says. That’s the funny thing about nicknames and traditions: institutions don’t always control them.
Fans do.
Galaxy Stadium may be the official name for the next 15 years, but it could take far longer than that to convince Tech fans to stop calling the place “The Jones.”
And maybe Texas Tech shouldn’t try.
Instead of attempting to transfer that beloved nickname to a section of seats, the university should find a substantial, permanent and unmistakable way to preserve the legacy of the man who helped make the stadium possible in the first place.
Clifford Jones spent nearly 80 years with his name attached to Texas Tech’s football stadium.
