\u2018One of my all-time favorites\u2019: Friends, coaches recall impact of Chris Payton-Jones<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cI just couldn\u2019t believe it,\u201d Motley said. \u201cThen I got a call from another parent, who called me crying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Motley remembered Payton-Jones as the kind of student every educator hopes for \u2014 joyful, respectful, and driven.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs an educator, you have those students whom you wish that you could clone,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd that was the type of student and person that Chris was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Payton-Jones went on to pursue his football dreams at the professional level, playing for five NFL teams from 2018 to 2021 and then playing in the XFL and UFL.<\/p>\n
But Motley said Payton-Jones remained connected to Sandalwood and to the people who supported him.<\/p>\n
She said the relationship grew beyond school and became family \u2014 including the day he returned with a Tennessee Titans jersey addressed to \u201cMama Motley.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s who I was to him,\u201d she said. \u201cYou could not ask for a better student.\u201d<\/p>\n
Motley said Payton-Jones also spent time giving back, working with students and young athletes when he came back to Jacksonville.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he came back to town, he met your students. He worked out with them. He tried to lead them in the right direction,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She added that he developed other passions off the field, including photography, and said one of the roles he took the most pride in was being a father.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the thing he was most proud of was being a father,\u201d Motley said. \u201cHe loved, loved, loved his son.\u201d<\/p>\n
Motley said she is now in communication with Sandalwood\u2019s current principal about ways to honor Payton-Jones at the school.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 The Jacksonville community is mourning Chris Payton-Jones, a former Sandalwood High School football standout and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[102921,502,116,118,117,13878],"class_list":{"0":"post-231398","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-chris-payton-jones","9":"tag-community","10":"tag-jacksonville","11":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","12":"tag-jacksonville-news","13":"tag-sandalwood-high-school"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}