<\/p>\n
When Charlie Jones was 18 months old, he came up missing in the house. His parents looked everywhere, but couldn\u2019t find him.<\/p>\n
Finally, they heard Charlie laughing and followed his voice to the kitchen, where they found him on top of the refrigerator with his hand in the cookie jar.<\/p>\n
The next day, they put Charlie into a gymnastics program. He was a natural climber, taking after his mother, who also was a gymnast.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a big part of my childhood,\u201d Jones said. \u201cMy parents were right there behind me the whole way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones went on to become one of the top-ranked young gymnasts in the U.S. He earned 30 national-level medals, including 11 golds. He\u2019s a four-time All-American, and he nearly went to the 2004 Summer Olympics on the U.S. National Gymnastics Team.<\/p>\n
Jones, an Aurora native, now works as a Colorado state trooper and lives near Mancos with his wife, Chelsea, and kids Ariella, 3, and Titus, 1.<\/p>\n
At age 17, Jones was ranked as one of the top 15 U.S. gymnasts. He was invited to live and train at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.<\/p>\n
His roommate was Olympic gymnast Steve McCain. Speed-skater Apolo Anton Ohno lived in the room above him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a fun time in life,\u201d he said. \u201cI had opportunities that no one else gets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones trained three times a day, six days a week, going home on Sundays.<\/p>\n
He was surrounded by some of the best athletes in the country. But he said he soon learned that even world-class athletes deal with ordinary struggles and insecurities.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realized that you can\u2019t find your identity in being an 11-time national champion,\u201d he said. \u201cMy identity can\u2019t be in that, because one day it will all go away.\u201d<\/p>\n
It went away sooner than he\u2019d expected.<\/p>\n
Three months before an important Winter Cup competition in 2003, Jones dismounted during practice, and his right shoulder separated. Doctors told him he needed surgery, but could still compete at the Winter Cup without further damaging his shoulder. Jones\u2019 vault was crucial to the team score, so he went through with the competition.<\/p>\n
Several days later, he had shoulder surgery.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I came out, the doctors said \u2018We\u2019re sorry, you\u2019re done,\u2019\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
After his initial injury, an MRI had missed a razor-thin bone chip the size of a pea, Jones said. The chip had been carving away at the cartilage in his shoulder, and by the time it was discovered, he had almost no cartilage left.<\/p>\n
He had been training for the 2004 Olympics, and hoped to be at the top of his class for the 2008 Olympics.<\/p>\n
The hope was gone.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a shock,\u201d Jones said. \u201cI was supposed to be getting into my prime, but that went away.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Jones\u2019 life changed instantly, he thought of his friend Ricky Deci, a 13-year-old gymnast at the Olympic Training Center. He recalled Ricky\u2019s infectious smile and happiness.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was always having fun,\u201d Jones said. \u201cHe couldn\u2019t be brought down in his attitude.\u201d<\/p>\n
When older kids picked on him, he\u2019d laugh it off. No matter what came his way, Ricky was happy, confident and full of joy, Jones said.<\/p>\n
One day, at the end of a workout, the team was competing on the pommel horse. Ricky was up last, and to win, he had to nail the dismount.<\/p>\n
But when Ricky came off the pommels, he landed awkwardly and fell over. A trainer went to Ricky and discovered that he wasn\u2019t breathing. Jones ran across the gym to find more people to help, and when he got back, the trainer was performing CPR. The 13-year-old soon was being hauled off in an ambulance.<\/p>\n
Two hours later, trainers announced that Ricky had died of a heart arrhythmia. Doctors said there was no way to predict or prevent the attack \u2013 Ricky was otherwise in perfect health.<\/p>\n
As Jones struggled with his injury and loss of career, he remembered how Ricky never let things get him down.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing you threw his way could shake him,\u201d Jones said of his friend. \u201cHe lived that way until the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones turned to his faith.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are the moments that make you think what life\u2019s about,\u201d Jones said. \u201cIt\u2019s not about being the Olympic gold medalist. It\u2019s not about being a super trooper or being the best at your job. It\u2019s about the relationships you have with your family, your friends and God. \u2026 It was easy for me to transition into the next phase of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
After retiring from gymnastics, Jones\u2019 journey took him to South America, where he did missionary and humanitarian work for the next few years with Open Doors and 2nd Glance Ministries, a group started by his father Clay Jones.<\/p>\n
In Colombia, Jones helped liberate orphans from the oppressive FARC guerilla group. In 2011, he worked with Peruvian government officials and civic leaders to fight sex trafficking.<\/p>\n
After returning to the U.S., he coached gymnastics for about six years. During that time, he began ministering to former military personnel and law enforcement officers. One of those men was a former Navy SEAL. He taught Jones how to use a weapon, and Jones became a proficient shooter.<\/p>\n
Jones soon found himself expecting a daughter and wanting a stable profession. He applied to the Colorado State Patrol Training Academy in January 2013.<\/p>\n
Six months later, patrol assignments were available in Lamar, Colorado and Montezuma County. Jones and his wife had always wanted to see Mesa Verde, so they chose Southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n
Since summer 2013, Jones and his family have lived on a hill outside Mancos with a spectacular view of the La Plata Mountains.<\/p>\n
As a patrolman, he deals with people who are having the worst day of their lives, Jones said. He meets them in those moments and tells them it will be OK \u2013 people are there to help.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like being a cop because I meet people on that worst day, and I help them through that process,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s sometimes stressful, but because he\u2019s grounded in his faith, Jones said he gets through it. He learned how to do that at the Olympic Training Center and with Ricky Deci.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether my job goes away tomorrow or I have a career-ending injury \u2013 I don\u2019t want to invite those things, and I\u2019m not saying it doesn\u2019t hurt \u2013 you\u2019re grounded and you can get through those trials,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t always get out unscathed, but you know you\u2019re coming out of it. That\u2019s what being a gymnast taught me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
injury ends an Olympic dream, faith takes gymnast Charlie Jones to a South American mission, and to a new chapter in Mancos<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":105729,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[13,2245,52,83,2505],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-105728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-gymnastics","tag-law-enforcement","tag-mancos","tag-summer-olympics"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105728"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=105728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}