Ed "Too Tall" Jones

Jones was born on February 23, 1951, in Jackson, Tennessee. He attended Merry High School, where he played baseball and basketball. He played only three football games, because his high school did not support the sport until his senior year.

His basketball skills earned him All-America honors and scholarship offers from several Division I (NCAA) programs. He also had offers from Major League Baseball teams to play first base in their farm systems.

As a senior, he fought a Golden Gloves boxing match, recording a knockout of his opponent in less than a minute. He stopped shortly after that, when his basketball coach read an article about the fight, and made him choose between basketball and boxing.Jones accepted a scholarship from Tennessee State University to play basketball, but left the team after two seasons, to concentrate on playing football under head coach John Merritt.

The 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m) Jones received his famous nickname during his first football practice, after a teammate mentioned that his pants did not fit because he was considered too tall to play football. In his new sport, he became a two-time All-American defensive lineman, playing on a team that lost only two games, en route to winning the black college football national championships in 1971 and 1973.

Jones ranks third in school history in sacks in a season with 12 and fifth in career sacks with 38. In 1999, he was voted to the 50th Anniversary Senior Bowl All-Time Team.

In 2013, he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame.

Jones’ acting credits in television include appearing as himself in the Diff'rent Strokes season 3 episode, "The Magician", and in the 1992 Married... with Children episode, "Just Shoe It", as one of the famous athletes in a sports shoes commercial that the character, Al Bundy, is starring in.

Jones starred in a GEICO commercial that initially aired in late 2009. The commercial rhetorically asks if Jones is indeed "too tall," then confirms it by showing a nurse attempting to measure his height, but breaking the medical scale's height rod when it doesn't reach high enough. The nurse then mutters, "I'm just going to guesstimate."