Scott Jones joined the William & Mary track and field and cross country teams in the fall of 2017 after a long and distinguished coaching career at a number of high-profile programs. Jones helps with the coaching of both of W&M's renowned cross country programs as well as the distance athletes during the indoor and outdoor track seasons, and will help with all administrative and recruiting tasks associated with running the nationally-competitive programs.
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Jones' expertise and experience has paid immediate dividends for the Tribe. In his first season at W&M, he helped Lauren Finikiotis earn CAA Rookie of the Year honors in women's cross country. After taking over primary responsibility for the women's distance group in the spring of 2018, he guided Molly Applegate to the CAA Championship in the 3,000m steeplechase, the first of her career, and a spot in the NCAA quarterfinals. Applegate was also the ECAC runner-up indoors in the mile in 2018. In 2018-19, the Tribe women regained the CAA Championship in cross country, with Finikiotis taking third overall to lead two teammates on the all-conference team. The 4x400m relay and the DMR both earned All-East honors indoors at the ECAC Championship, and junior Liv Paxton set lifetime-bests in every event and finished fourth in the ECAC 5,000m indoors in her first year after transferring to W&M. Outdoors, the 4x400m team broke the decade-old school record at the Colonial Relays, while Paxton continued her strong year with a silver in the CAA 10,000m and just missed out on qualifying for NCAAs. Charlotte Kowalk had a breakout campaign at 800m, running under 2:11 a program-record six times, more than anyone else ever had in a career, and took second at the CAA Championships in addition to running on that school-record relay.
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The 2019-20 campaign got off to a strong start with a conference-best four women named All-CAA in cross country, including Paxton, Kowalk, Finikiotis, and freshman Emma Rogers. Taylor D. Jones and Paxton also started off the indoor track season well, with multiple ECAC qualifiers in the first few meets.
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Jones brought over 25 years of high-level coaching experience to Williamsburg, most recently serving as a volunteer coach under Brian Fetzer at the University of Virginia for the early fall of 2017. Before that, he was the head women's cross country coach at Illinois from 2013-17 under Director of Track and Field Ron Garner. While with the Illini, he coached Alyssa Schneider to a pair of NCAA cross country appearance, including All-American honors in 2015. It was actually his second tenure in Champlain, after he was an assistant coach from 1994-96 for head coach Gary Winkler, helping Illinois to back-to-back fourth-place finishes at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
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In between his stops in Illinois, Jones spent 17 years at the University of Akron with Director of Track and Field Dennis Mitchell, including the last five as the head cross country coach from 2008-13. The Zips won a pair of Mid-American Conference cross country titles, in 1999 and 2005, as well as a total of ten indoor and outdoor conference team championships. Individually, Jones' athletes included 1999 cross country All-American Michelle (Rizzo) Wardle and five-time track All-American Beata (Rudzinska) Swiegocka, as well as a total of 25 individual MAC conference champions. Jones's athletes set every Akron women's school record from 800m up to the 10,000m. Across both schools, Jones' teams reached the highest levels of achievement both athletically (earning 30 NCAA regional and first-round invitations) and academically, earning team Academic Honors from the WICCCA/USTFCCCA every fall since 1998.
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Jones' coaching career began at Cornell University in the fall of 1991, where he served for two years as a volunteer with the Big Red and head coach Lou Duesing. Those teams earned back-to-back fourth-place finishes at the NCAA Cross Country Championships, still the second-best finishes ever for an Ivy League team at the national championships. He has also been very active in the national governance ranks, serving multiple terms as an at-large and regional representative on the USTFCCCA Cross Country Executive Committee. Since 2008, Jones has served as the national secretary for the Division I Cross Country Executive Committee, and since 2011, he has also served on the NCAA's working committee on Indoor Facility Indexing.
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Jones earned his undergraduate degree in geology at Duke in 1982, before going on to earn his doctorate in earth science from UC San Diego in 1989. He resides in Williamsburg.
