Sooner rookie Jones is A-OK

PLATTEVILLE, Wis. The first things you notice about Dante Jones arethe shoulders. You wonder if the guy forgot to take off the padsbefore sitting down to the Bears' training table.

Then you sit down beside him, and you see the padding is allmuscle under the T-shirt that says "Sooners" across the chest.

The Bear rookie linebacker from Oklahoma, 6-1 and 236, looksyou straight in the eye and talks in machinegun bursts. He seems allbusiness.

In a training camp troubled by the loss of veterans, the goodnews must come from rookies living up to expectations. Early returnson Jones are heartening. He can play.

"We saw in him some characteristics we saw in Mike Singletary,leadership and intelligence," says Bill Tobin, the Bears' personnelchief.

The loss of Wilber Marshall through free agency mandated thatthe Bears draft a linebacker. They took Jones in the second round.

Jones will back up Singletary in the middle. Ron Rivera,Singletary's backup last year, joins Otis Wilson as a starteroutside.

Jones has looked over that group with an appraising eye anddecided he would rather play outside. "I know my chances of everstarting in Chicago aren't in the middle," he says. "Mike is a greatlinebacker. Hopefully, I can get to play outside and get a chance tostart some day."

Linebacker coach Dave McGinnis explains Jones is beingintroduced at middle linebacker to learn the whole Bear system fromthat central position. Once he has learned Singletary's job, he willfind it easier to learn the roles of Rivera and Wilson.

In any case, Singletary will be 30 in October; Wilson 31 nextmonth. Time is on Jones' side.

It is ironic Jones must begin his pro career in the shadow ofthe game's finest middle linebacker. He had enough of beingovershadowed at Oklahoma. In his sophomore and junior seasons, heplayed next to that peacock of linebackers, Brian Bosworth. Joneswouldn't have been noticed if he had played barefoot and swallowedswords at halftime.

" `Boz' got all the publicity," Jones says. "It was like he wasa one-man team. But everyone knew he couldn't have won all thosegames by himself."

Oklahoma played a 3-4 defense. Jones and Paul Migliazzo,drafted by the Bears last year, alternated at weakside interiorlinebacker, while the Boz played strongside in 1985 and '86.

When the Boz was suspended for the 1987 Orange Bowl, Jonestook his place, made nine unassisted tackles and a pass interceptionas Oklahoma trounced Arkansas.

"I guess I proved I could do the same things he did," Dantesays.

With no Boz to distract selectors, Jones was defensive playerof the year in the Big Eight as a senior.

Despite Oklahoma's consistently flossy record, drafting Soonershas a drawback. Their knowledge of the forward pass is hearsay.Oklahoma seldom passes. It crushes the weaker sisters of the BigEight with a wishbone running game. And Oklahoma defenders areseldom tested by a top-flight passing offense in their league.

So Caesar Rentie, another Bear draftee from Oklahoma, is takinga crash course in pass blocking as he struggles to fill one of theinjury-created gaps at offensive tackle. And Jones knows he needswork on pass defense.

Dante's father named him for the Italian poet who left us avision of Hell.

This Dante has found his own Hell in Wisconsin, two-a-daypractices in temperatures approaching 100. He succumbed and wascarried off the field one day.

"Hopefully, I can last the six weeks without an injury orgetting totally drained," he says.

His background argues he will make it. He grew up playingfootball in the streets of Dallas, with no grass to cushion hislandings. In high school, he played offense and defense in thewilting Texas heat.

Dante should become a big name in a hurry in Chicago. With theBear offense playing without tackles, this shapes up as a season inwhich the defense will be on the field most of the time, andlinebackers will become better known than quarterbacks.