“The thing that made Cortez so special is the way he would check on people,” Jones said Tuesday after making a round of calls at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center. “I was here in Seattle, and he was in Florida, and you’d get a phone call at like 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning and you’d think, ‘Oh man, is something going on.’ But he was just like, ‘Hey man, just wanted to check on you, see how you’re doing, how your family’s doing.'”
After Kennedy died, Jones began to get a sense for how many lives Kennedy touched.
“Once he passed away, I’d hear from other people who’d say, ‘Cortez Kennedy would always check on you,'” Jones said. “That’s why I wanted to start the Check 96 Initiative. In everybody’s life, everybody understands that part of life where you get so busy and you forget to check on those people who meant so much to you. That’s what it means to me, just making sure people check in on each other. Once you leave this game, everybody goes their own way, and we get busy.”
Often times, Jones’ calls can be good-natured banter and catching up, but one of the goals of Check 96 is to also reach players who might need help and not know where to get it or who might not be comfortable asking for help without a nudge from a Seahawks Legend like Jones.
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