Richard Jones

Biography

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. 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. 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. 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 a