Track and Field
- Title:
- Director of Track & Field and Cross Country
- Email:
- salukitrackandfield@siu.edu
- Phone:
- 618-453-7242
Richard Jones enters his second season as the Director of SIU Track & Field and Cross Country.
Jones was an assistant coach with the Saluki track and field program prior to receiving the promotion.Â
In his first season as a Saluki, Jones’ sprinters won six MVC titles, tallied 12 top-3 finishes at conference meets and totaled an impressive 14 top-eight finishes. While doing so, his sprinters broke five school records and tallied an additional six top-10 school marks.Â
At the 2019 MVC Indoor Championships, Tyjuana Eason was the Saluki women’s top-point scorer and won three MVC titles, which included the program’s first-ever women’s 60m dash title. In doing so, she became just the 15th woman in MVC history to win both the 60m and 200m dashes at the same conference meet.Â
At the 2019 MVC Outdoor Championships, Bri’Anna Branch became just the second individual in program history to nab MVC Most Outstanding Athlete honors after she won the 100m and 200m dashes and also helped SIU to a win in the 4x100 relay. Under Jones’ tutelage, Branch went on to clock the first sub-23 second 200m in school history at 22.74 and became the first Saluki women's sprinter since 1986 to qualify for the national meet in the 200m dash. Southern’s women’s 4x100 relay team also made school history, as it broke the school record with a time of 44.27 at the NCAA West Regional to become the first Saluki women’s 400m relay team to qualify for the national meet. It was SIU’s first appearance in a relay event of any distance at a national meet, men’s or women’s, since 1986.
Prior to SIU, Jones spent five seasons at Ohio State University where he helped coach the Buckeyes’ sprinters. During that time, his athletes won 15 Big 10 titles, earned 46 All-Big 10 accolades and he had 42 student-athletes qualify for national meets to name a few of his athletes accomplishments.
While at OSU, Jones coached Nick Gray who qualified for the national meet eight times and earned four first-team All-America laurels under Jones’ tutelage. In 2016, Gray became OSU’s first first-team All-American in the indoor 200 since 1994.
Prior to returning to his alma mater as an assistant coach, Jones spent 10 years as head coach at Bishop Hartley High School in Columbus, Ohio, where his teams rewrote the state Division II record books in all sprint events. Over a four-year stretch, Bishop Hartley’s girls team was either state champion (2009, 2011) or state runners-up (2008, 2010). He coached 16 state champions, six high school All-Americans and helped 14 student-athlete to college level track programs. During the 2010 season, Bishop Hartley’s girls 4x200 meter relay team won a national title in the event.
As a student-athlete at Ohio State, Jones was a seven-time Big Ten Champion and a four-time All-American, which included winning a national title as part of Ohio State’s 4x400 outdoor relay team in 1993. A seven-time national qualifier, Jones went on to serve as captain of the 1996 Guyanese Olympic Team and competed in both 400-meter dash and 4×400-meter relay. Jones held the Guyanese national record in the 400-meter dash for nearly 18 years before Winston George broke it in 2014.
A 1996 graduate of Ohio State with a degree in telecommunications and electronic media, Jones and his wife, Latika, share four children together.
