Swanson: UCLA’s Londynn Jones never sweats the ‘small’ stuff

LOS ANGELES — If you think UCLA women’s basketball standout Londynn Jones is formidable at her 5 feet, 4 inches tall, I’ve got to tell you about her great-great-grandmother, Mamie Kirkland.

Before her death at 111 in 2020, the 4-6 Kirkland was, as the Buffalo News put it this week, “a giant of Buffalo history.”

Dan Barry memorialized Kirkland in the New York Times, writing that “she was also the embodiment of the African-American experience of the 20th century,” detailing her experiences dealing with racial violence, lynchings, riots and the Ku Klux Klan. Kirkland’s life helped inspire the opening of the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, in Montgomery, Alabama.

“She was,” Jones said, “an extremely powerful woman.”

She never got to see Jones play basketball in person, but yes, she said, there absolutely is some Kirkland in her out there on the court.

“Yes! Just how strong she is,” Jones said. “She was a walking miracle.”

Also: “We looked alike, when she was younger.”

Jones is the Bruins’ mean-mugging, fun-loving guard, a diminutive, never-daunted competitor.

A junior from Riverside – where Kirkland would spend winters to get away from the cold – Jones is usually the most obvious player on the court, a favorite of fans who can appreciate a good beating-the-odds story, and anyone who might enjoy a rousing game of cat-and-mouse.

Southern’s 5-4 guard DaKiya Sanders certainly did: “I think she’s a great player, playing for a great team. It’s great to see somebody my height that’s at this level.”

Jones entered the NCAA Tournament averaging 8.8 points per game and shooting 34.8% on a team-leading total of 184 3-point attempts.

“I feel like the one thing I do get a lot is like, ‘Oh my God, you’re so small,’” Jones said. “But I’m around tall people all day, so, yes, I am small, but I make sure to tell them, ‘You guys are just big, I’m actually average.’”

On Friday, she was better than average; she was big in helping guide top-seeded UCLA to an 84-46 victory over No. 16 seed Southern before a crowd of 5,703 at Pauley Pavilion. One of six Bruins to score in double figures, she finished with 11 points on 5-for-11 shooting.

Kirkland – who was the mother of nine, according to the Times – never learned to drive, and often attributed her longevity to spending so many years walking around Buffalo, selling Avon beauty products.

Jones said she used to ask: “Grannie, how do you live so long? And she would be like, ‘No stress. Don’t stress.’ That was her secret.”

After everything Kirkland overcame in her life, that makes sense.

And it makes sense that, for Jones, the secret to success for the Bruins will be that they don’t stress as they venture deeper into March Madness with a second-round game Sunday night against the eighth-seeded Richmond Spiders.

“If we get each other going, we laugh, we smile, we giggle, and make jokes on the court,” she said. “That’s what it’s all about.”

In 2016, the Equal Justice Initiative honored Kirkland, then 107, at a fund-raising gala, where she gave a speech, turning down a wheelchair and walking on stage on her own. Until her death, Jones said, Kirkland “had all her hearing, seeing, walking.”

And this month, Jones is dancing again, her chance to make history possible because of the strength and spirit of her great-great-Grannie.

“I miss her extremely,” Jones said. “She was amazing.”