Years before they both became coaches in different sports at Hoosick Falls High School, Mike Lilac met Ron Jones in college.

“I met him at Cortland,” said Lilac, the longtime coach of Hoosick Falls’s basketball team. “He lived next door to a friend of mine in the same dorm and we were friends all of the way through college.”

Despite growing up in Stillwater, Lilac got a job in Jones’s hometown several years before his former college pal was hired to coach the school’s football team.

“I was on the interview committee for when he interviewed for the job end it was a no-brainer,” Lilac said. “I’m telling them that we’ve got to take him, we should not even interview anybody else, this is it, he’s going to be here for 30 years and coach our team and be a pillar of the community and that’s what turned out to happen.”

Seven years ago, Lilac’s son, Alex, played for Jones on the school’s football team, which would win six consecutive sectional championships.

“Whether you were the best player on the team or just a guy who was there to help fill out a roster, it did not matter, he would forge a relationship with anybody,” said Alex, who followed in his father’s and former coach’s footsteps and attended Cortland before joining the local coaching ranks at nearby Hoosic Valley.

Another former classmate from the Cortland days, Burnt Hills football coach Matt Shell would reunite with Jones through Section II athletics. In 2012 their teams reached the state championships the same year in different classes.

“To have the connection that we had and then having our teams at the [Carrier] Dome at the same time was a pretty fun experience,” Shell said. “It’s something that doesn’t happen very often and we really enjoyed it for sure.”

Already united through the bond of athletic competition, the three men and countless others are now joined by grief. On Monday evening Jones suddenly passed away at the age of 51.

“It was about the last thing I expected to hear,” the elder Lilac said.

“A hundred things go through your mind, just how terrible it is,” Shell said. “All of the different flashbacks you have, all of the different memories.”

“Somebody like him, in your head you figure he is going to live forever,” Alex Lilac said.

Jones, who is survived by a wife and daughter, spent 24 years at the school, also working as an elementary physical education teacher.

“He has been a landmark here, a beloved teacher and a pillar of the community in every way shape and form,” said Hoosick Falls Superintendent Patrick Bailey, who’s worked with Jones for almost 20 years.

A proud father, husband, friend and coach, those closest to him say Jones’s legacy will live on.

“It is one of those things that makes you sit back and take stock of what you have and how you live your life and how you act,” Mike Lilac said. “He was top-notch, high character.”