Demitrius Jones played one full football season at Martin Luther King. Now he’s heading to Cornell.

If you went from not knowing what a touchdown was to announcing your commitment to Cornell, words might escape you, too.

Presumably still astonished, Martin Luther King High senior Demitrius Jones struggled to explain his unexpected reality.

“It’s … very surreal,” Jones said in a phone interview. “I mean, this season, I was just there to play for fun. I didn’t think I would have any college interest or ... be committed to Cornell. It’s all just very surreal.”

The 6-foot-5, 250-pound offensive lineman announced his pledge on social media last week after visiting Cornell on the weekend of Dec. 9.

Perhaps what makes his journey even more improbable: Jones didn’t play sports growing up. Instead, he played chess, video games, and the piano. Essentially, he only played football during his senior season of high school.

The pandemic scuttled his freshman year. Then, because Jones’ academic focus waned slightly, his father, Jeremiah, put the kibosh on his sophomore and junior seasons.

So, how did Jones, 17, parlay this improbable beginning into an Ivy League opportunity?

Perhaps a teammate’s persuasive phone call to his father combined with Jones’ intelligence, inquisitive nature, and unexpected ferocity made it all possible.

“I really came into football not knowing what a touchdown was,” Jones said, laughing. “I missed two years, came into my senior year, and [accomplished] all this. I’m still just taking it all in.”

Before each season begins, King’s coaching staff sends a football quiz to new players, gauging how well they know the basics.

When Jones was a freshman, King coach Malik Jones (no relation) still remembers the youngster answering incorrectly about touchdowns.

“I remember asking my grandpa, ‘Is it six points, or is it seven or eight?’” Demitrius Jones said, laughing. “I had no idea. I didn’t know what a quarterback and a wide receiver were. I wasn’t a sports player [growing up]. I was reading books and playing chess. I was a nerd. I wasn’t an athlete.”

It helped, however, when Jones applied his thirst for knowledge to football. He devoured information at a rapid pace the same way he once read books as a boy.

In a phone interview, his father recalled how Jones once read 100 books in a summer while in elementary school at West Oak Lane Charter School.

“He just kept asking to go to the library,” Jeremiah Jones said. “That’s when I knew how inquisitive he was.”

Something similar happened when Jones noticed his father playing chess with his grandfather, Tyrone.

Jones learned all he could about the game and even competed in a chess club for about six years. He also observed while his grandfather played music in a church band.

Not long after, Jones was playing the piano, the drums, and the bass guitar.

When it came to football, King’s coach, now in his fifth season, said Jones always arrived about 30 minutes early to Zoom meetings during the pandemic. He also asked a lot of questions.

“I was most impressed by his desire to learn,” Malik Jones said. “And he was so consistent about showing up.”

» READ MORE: Football has helped Keith Jenkins overcome adversity. Now he’s a role model at Martin Luther King High School.

Jones had attended King as a freshman but quickly transferred to Parkway Northwest, which has a more stringent academic reputation and has a cooperative athletic sponsorship with King, where Parkway students play football.

During his sophomore year, Jones’ focus dipped in the classroom. The final straw: bringing home a C.

“He got off track,” said Jeremiah, a single parent. “I had to shut it down to get him focused.”

It wasn’t easy. Jeremiah struggled watching his son miss his teammates, miss the game. “But I had to stay stern,” he said. “It did hurt, but I couldn’t show weakness. If I did, he might have gone back to being unfocused.”

For nearly two years, Jones’ teammates often asked if or when he would return to the team.

Then in July, fellow late bloomer Savion Terry, who didn’t start playing football until his junior season, asked Jones for his father’s phone number.

They never spoke on the phone before.

“I just thought maybe if he heard from a teammate who cared about ‘Meech and really wanted him to play,” Terry said in a phone interview, “maybe he would consider it.”

Terry is a 6-2, 250-pound senior defensive end with an offer from St. Francis (Pa.) and interest from several others. He was persuaded to play by senior teammate Jordany Pajuste, whose older brother Matthew is a lineman at the University of Buffalo.

“Football can really change your life,” Terry said, “and you never know when you can get this opportunity again.”

He remembers telling Jeremiah that this year could be his son’s last chance to play football.

The rest is about to be Ivy League history.

With the green light from his father, Jones hit the weight room every day to make up for lost time. He also devoured King’s playbook, learning the responsibilities of every player on the field.

His intelligence was always evident. For someone who didn’t grow up playing sports, his athleticism was also displayed.

His coach said that Jones’ fast-twitch muscles, the ones that help with sudden bursts like sprinting and jumping, are comparable to a smaller, quicker athlete.

“Usually the longer the limbs, the slower the twitch, but he has explosiveness you don’t really find in guys his size,” Malik Jones said.

He also has a nastiness on the field that his father laughs about.

“Who Demitrius is on the football field,” Jeremiah said with a laugh, “I don’t know that young man. I did not raise that guy. He is a beast. He is an animal. I don’t even know who he is.”

For Dan Swanstrom, who was introduced as Cornell’s new coach on Dec. 8, Jones is his new regime’s first recruit.

Jones is also a grateful young man.

“If you want something, you have to make it yours,” Jones said. “It won’t be given to you. That’s what my dad taught me. My dad was strict. I had to earn everything.”

“I thank him for being patient because I can be hardheaded sometimes,” Jones added later. “At a young age, he always asked me, ‘What do you want to be in life?’ He’d ask me, ‘Do you want to be like me?’ He’d say, ‘Be better than me. Accomplish things I never got to do.’ So I thank him for the encouragement, for the punishments, and for the love he gave me.”