Jon Arnett

Jon Dwane "Jaguar Jon" Arnett (April 20, 1935 – January 16, 2021) was an American professional football player. He was a first-team All-American out of USC and was chosen in the first round, second pick overall, of the 1957 NFL Draft by the Los Angeles Rams.

During a successful 10-year career in the National Football League, Arnett was selected five consecutive times to the Pro Bowl from 1957 to 1961 before chronic knee pain reduced his effectiveness. He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2001.

Early life
Jon Arnett was born April 20, 1935. He attended Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles, for which he competed on the school gymnastics team. Arnett later attributed much of his career success as an elusive running back to this early background in gymnastics. Arnett also participated in track and field in high school and later in college, specializing in the long jump. In 1954 Arnett posted a near-record of 24'8.75" in an NCAA meet.

During his 1952 senior season, Arnett scored a total of 112 points, eclipsing the old single-season high school record of 110, in leading the Manual Arts Toilers to the Los Angeles city championship. The All-Southern California Board of Football, working through the Helms Athletic Association, named Arnett to the first team of the Los Angeles All-City high school football team and selected him as the 1952 Player of the Year.

College career
Arnett attended the University of Southern California, for which he played football and ran track.

Arnett was the multiple recipient of the W. J. Voit Memorial Trophy as the outstanding football player on the Pacific Coast. Arnett won the Voit Trophy in both 1955 and 1956.


 * 1954: 96 carries for 601 yards and 7 TD. 3 catches for 104 yards and 2 TD.
 * 1955: 141 carries for 672 yards and 11 TD. 6 catches for 154 yards and 3 TD.
 * 1956: 99 carries for 625 yards and 6 TD. 2 catches for 38 yards.

During his sophomore season USC was granted a bid to the 1955 Rose Bowl despite a second place finish in the Pacific Coast Conference, owing to UCLA being ruled ineligibile. The speedy Arnett acquitted himself well, finishing with 123 yards gained on just 9 carries, including a 70-yard scamper in the fourth quarter, but the Trojans fell nonetheless by a score of 20–7.

Arnett was a first team All American during his 1955 junior year at USC but was limited to only half a season of eligibility in 1956 due to NCAA penalties against the Pacific Coast Conference for recruiting violations.

Professional career
Arnett was selected by the Los Angeles Rams in the first round of the 1957 NFL draft, the number two choice overall, one of two running backs picked ahead of legendary Syracuse fullback Jim Brown in that lottery. His initial contract signed with the Rams was a one-year deal for $15,000. The most he ever made in a single season during his ten-year career was $37,000.

In addition to averaging 4.6 yards per carry during his first four seasons with the Rams, Arnett also served as a punt return and kickoff return specialist and was among the team's leading pass receivers.

Arnett's production fell off after the 1961 season — his last of five consecutive trips to the Pro Bowl — when a chronic "knee sprain" began to exact its toll. Largely robbed of the fluidity which made his open-field running a constant big play threat for the Rams, Arnett came to be viewed as expendable by the team in the run-up to the 1964 season. Arnett acknowledged his status, declaring "The hardest thing with any athlete is to be injured. The relationship with players and coaches becomes different."

With predictions of the forthcoming move rife, Jon Arnett was traded to the Chicago Bears in August 1964. In the 3-for-1 trade the Rams received four-year starting guard Roger Davis, center Joe Wendryhoski, a veteran of the Canadian Football League, and rookie defensive back Frank Budka of Notre Dame.

Legendary Bears head coach George Halas declared that the addition of the veteran Arnett helped fill a "gaping hole" for his club in the aftermath of the death of left halfback Willie Galimore. "Ron Bull has been filling in adequately," Halas said, "but we needed another man at the position."

Arnett would play three largely uneventful seasons for the Bears, retiring after the 1966 campaign.

Arnett was known by teammates as "The Cat" and by the popular nickname of "Jaguar Jon." Arnett's nicknames were attributed to an "unusual sense of balance and body coordination which enables him to dodge, cut, and slip from tacklers."

Life after football
Arnett was married in June 1959 to a former USC classmate and Rose Parade princess, Yvonne Flint of Pasadena.

During his NFL years Arnett worked in the off-season as a stock and bond broker for the firm of Hayden, Stone & Co. of Beverly Hills.

Arnett ran a distribution service and supplied frozen foods to Costco, Sam's Club, and Wal-Mart. After living for many years in the Los Angeles County coastal town of Rancho Palos Verdes, Arnett and his family moved to Lake Oswego, Oregon.

"I went to grammar school, junior high school, high school, USC, and the Rams, all within a 5 mile radius," Arnett told an Oregon journalist in 2008. "I was really a Southern California person. Now you couldn’t get me to go back there."

Death and legacy
Arnett died on January 16, 2021, from heart failure in Lake Oswego, Oregon.

Arnett was inducted into the USC Athletic Hall of Fame in 1994 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 2001 as a member of the USC Trojans.