Steve Jones is a born storyteller.

You can see it in the way his eyes light up and his hands start going when he realizes he has the perfect anecdote to answer the question asked or to add to the topic being discussed.

There is a glow that takes over the face of the light-hearted 45-year-old play-by-play announcer for the Penn State football and men's basketball teams. Every story is lively, his words always well spoken and always chosen to maximize the enjoyment for the listener and the storyteller as well. You can tell he's enjoying it when he starts chuckling as the story nears the punchline.

So when Jones is asked a question, grimaces, shakes his head and says, "I don't want to talk about it," you know it's a really sore subject.

Jones was at a Make-A-Wish function at the Student Bookstore in February, helping the foundation ask for donations on the radio station he works for, 3WZ, when he was asked if he thought then-Penn State basketball coach Jerry Dunn would be fired at the end of the season.

After the aforementioned reaction, Jones explained.

"My parents taught me two things," he said. "Hard work and loyalty."

That was enough to get him off the hook for giving any opinions he might have on the basketball team, which eventually finished 7-21 and 2-15 in the Big Ten, or its coaching situation, which was resolved with Dunn's resignation. Jones started working with the team in 1983, the same year Dunn became an assistant coach at Penn State. The two have become close friends in those 20 years, and Jones just didn't want to speculate on the chances of his friend leaving town.

That was the only reason Jones said it, but the statement also serves to explain everything about him. It's the reason he prepares for a game almost like he's coaching it, obsessing about the statistical tendencies of the Nittany Lions' opposition. It's the reason he piles on responsibilities outside of his main job, and it's the reason that he continued to stick with the Penn State men's basketball job for 17 years despite better offers before finally getting the football play-by-play job.

Jones showed early on that he knew what hard work and loyalty meant. The Enfield, Conn., native worked for his father at his sheet metal company beginning at age 10 and continuing through college, during which he would come home for breaks to work. He was involved in all parts of the business including welding, which often earned him severe burns.

The loyalty was there too. Jones grew up a Red Sox fan while his brother Kevin rooted for the Yankees. It's not easy to stick with the most cursed franchise in all of sports while your brother roots for the most blessed, but that was Jones' team, and that's what he did.

Both of those qualities are still obvious in him. Though he is now the play-by-play man for a major program in the football team, he still busts his hump working for the basketball team that gave him his start. As dead as the Bryce Jordan Center might be on any given night and as far down as the Lions might be in some games, Jones makes every effort to make every play sound dynamic. He adds suspense with every ball movement, building to his "It's GOOOOD" call on the basket that has inadvertently become his signature.

And the little things. He does them all. His research is intense enough to provide him every statistical trend that could possibly become pertinent during a game. If it's tight down the stretch, and you're wondering how good at free-throw shooting the Lions' opposition is in the late stages of games, you can be assured that Jones will let you know.

Then there is the memory. It's downright ridiculous. He can give you the score, the leading scorers, and the story of any game from the beginning of his career to the present day.

"He knows more about my career than I know," said Brian Allen, who serves as Jones' color man and played at Penn State from 1986-89. "He recalls games in my career that I have absolutely no memory of. He's like a walking almanac. I can probably ask him about any game in my career and he can tell me what I shot."

Jones is also obsessive about creating a rhythm with his color man. Once he finally did get the Penn State football play-by-play job in 2000, he immediately went to work with color man Jack Ham, the Hall-of-Fame linebacker and Penn State alumnus who has spent 15 years working with the NFL's flagship network, Westwood One. Ham said he had never come together so quickly with a play-by-play announcer.

"It's not even close," Ham said. "A lot of the times guys end up stepping over each other. We never had that. A lot of play-by-play guys have egos, and they want it to be their show. That's not him. He's always asking me if he's giving me enough latitude to say what I have to say."

All of that earned him several offers for other jobs, which he declines to give details about, but since he came to State College in his junior year at Penn State after two years at the Wilkes-Barre branch campus, he hasn't put much consideration into leaving town. He graduated from Penn State in 1979, took a job at WMAJ immediately after, and started working with the Penn State radio network in 1983 when he got the men's basketball play-by-play job. He also worked with the football crew, doing the pregame and post game shows, and breaking in to the broadcast to give scores from other games.

He kept the men's basketball job, and eventually became the Public Address announcer at Beaver Stadium before getting the play-by-play job with former announcer Fran Fisher's retirement after the 1999 season.

"I just always wanted to take a shot at getting the Penn State football job," Jones said. "I just thought that I'd have a better chance if I were to stay here. Plus I enjoyed broadcasting Penn State basketball. That's always been a lot of fun for me and a very rewarding experience. When a couple things did come along I decided not to do them. I had tunnel vision. I never really thought about going in a different direction."

That loyalty has made the past few years painful. Though Penn State basketball has never been a powerhouse, making the NCAA tournament just three times in Jones' tenure, they have usually been at least somewhat respectable, with several NIT trips. In the two years since their Sweet 16 run in 2001, however, they have won just five Big Ten games, and just 14 total.

Jones travels with the team and goes to practices. He has long-standing relationships with the entire coaching staff as well as the players, and seeing them off the court makes him understand how much they are hurting on it.

"It's my job obviously to paint the picture on the radio and talk about the team, but those are also my friends out there, working hard," Jones said. "The players are people I like. It's not my job to be a cheerleader on the air, but everyone knows which team I want to win. When things aren't going well for them it is tough, but it's not tough because it's tough for me to do the job on the air. It's tough because I'm seeing people I really like, and I want them to be successful."

Along with those loyalties, Jones' association with the State College community also kept him from leaving for greener pastures. Jones is active in the Easter Seals program and coaches baseball at the State College Little League and Babe Ruth leagues as well as basketball in the Pioneer league. He also involves himself in several other charities, including Make-A-Wish through 3WZ.

Jones also has plenty of family responsibilities. He and his wife Kathy have five children. Jennifer, the eldest at 22, just graduated from Penn State. Mike, 20, is majoring in kinesiology at Penn State, and Daniel, 17, Chris, 12, and Meghan, 9, are all students in the State College school district. Beyond all of that and his responsibilities as play-by-play man, he also still has a morning show on 3WZ with Steve Williams, and he works with WPSX in the afternoons. Starting in the fall, he will begin teaching a class in Sports Broadcasting for Penn State's College of Communications.

"I don't think he sleeps," said Pam Renwick, the Western Pennsylvania Regional manager at Make-A-Wish who has worked with Jones for five years. "At most probably three hours a night."

And when he does, you can bet Jones still hears that advice about hard work and loyalty in his dreams.