Receiver Dwight Jones Jr. of Burlington has given up on his attempts to play football at North Carolina and will instead play for Division II Valdosta State.
Jones has signed with Valdosta State, a school official confirmed, and he left for Georgia yesterday. Valdosta State finished 13-1 last season and won the Division II national championship.
Jones, who played at Burlington Cummings, signed with North Carolina in February 2007 but couldn't enroll that summer because of academic shortcomings.
He attended a military prep school in Virginia last year, but still couldn't qualify academically.
Deborah Jones said that her son was disappointed that he wouldn't be able to play for the Tar Heels, but that he was ready to start his college career.
"Once he made his mind up to attend a Division II school, I think all his disappointment was over,"
she said. "He had already lived through that. He's very happy and content right now."
"I think his sad period was wrestling with everything during the process. Once he made his mind up that, ‘This might not be working out real good for me,' he knew he had to go on and think about a Division II school."
SuperPrep magazine ranked Jones as the No. 1 senior in the state after the 2006 high-school season and No. 11 in the nation among all receivers. It also named him to its All-America team.
Jones caught 112 passes for 2,315 yards and 20 touchdowns in his last two high-schools seasons.
Jones made 67 catches for 1,396 yards and 12 touchdowns as a senior and helped Cummings win the Class 2-A state title. He also starred in basketball and played on two state-championship teams.
Tennessee and Clemson recruited Jones heavily, but he wanted to play at North Carolina because it was his favorite school growing up.
"They were still waiting for him,"
Jones' mother said of the Tar Heels' coaches. "He was respectful and called them and told them that he was going to Valdosta. They still wished him well."
"They're a wonderful school and wonderful coaches. I could never say anything bad about Carolina because they really did stick by Dwight."
Jones, a Tar Heel recruit, enrolls at Valdosta State
