Former Hawaiʻi, Falcons Coach June Jones Dies At 73

June Jones, who built Hawaiʻi's program into a Sugar Bowl team and later coached the Atlanta Falcons, died Thursday at age 73.

Hawaiʻi's football program did not list a cause of death. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser, citing a close family friend, reported that Jones entered hospice two weeks ago in his native Oregon.

Jones coached the Falcons from 1991 through parts of the 1990s. He took over after Jerry Glanville was fired, ran the run-and-shoot offense, and led Atlanta to one playoff appearance with quarterback Jeff George. The Falcons fired him after three seasons. The team's defense wore down, the source article said, because the offense moved and scored quickly and left the defense on the field.

"A visionary in the passing game," the Falcons said in a statement Thursday.

Before the pros, Jones played quarterback at three colleges, including Hawaiʻi. His transfer to Portland State put him under Mouse Davis, who taught an offense built on four receivers adjusting routes on the fly, almost no running, and a fast tempo. Davis called it the run-and-shoot. Jones later ran it, and he got more from it than most.

He spent the 1980s with the Falcons as a third-string quarterback, then moved into assistant coaching. He joined Glanville's staff with the Houston Oilers in 1987 and worked with Warren Moon. He returned to Atlanta as an assistant in 1991 and became head coach when Glanville was let go. After Atlanta, he served a short interim stint with the San Diego Chargers, taking over for Kevin Gilbride.

Jones came back to Honolulu in 1999, after the Warriors went 0-12. His first team went 9-4 and won the Oʻahu Bowl. In 2007, quarterback Colt Brennan ran the offense to a 12-0 regular season, which put Hawaiʻi in the Bowl Championship Series. Georgia beat the Rainbow Warriors 41-10 in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. Over nine seasons at Hawaiʻi, Jones went 76-41, the most wins in program history. He later coached at SMU and went 36-43 in more than six years.

"Coach Jones was a father figure, a mentor, and a visionary who revolutionized the game," said Timmy Chang, Hawaiʻi's current coach, who set the NCAA record for career passing yards under Jones, a mark since broken. Chang added, "He believed in a young kid from Hawaiʻi and gave me the opportunity of a lifetime to run his offense."

Gov. Josh Green called Jones "an exceptional human being." Green said, "He was a motivator of young people and he was a winner. He won big moments for us, and that put us into the spotlight."