St. John's University Athletics
Chris Jones Named St. Johns Pitching Coach
2/13/2002 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Jones joins the Red Storm staff after having served as the head coach at Mt. San Antonio Junior College in Walnut, California. While at Mt. San Antonio, where he also served as a professor of physical education, Jones guided the program to an NCAA Tournament appearance last year.
Jones played collegiately at Johns Hopkins, Eckerd College and South Carolina-Aiken. He played on two College World Series teams (Johns Hopkins, 1989; and South Carolina-Aiken, 1993), and each team was nationally-ranked. Following his graduation, he played one year of independent ball, pitching for the West Virginia Coal Socks of the Frontier League.
He landed his first collegiate coaching job at Georgetown, where he served as the mentor for the pitching staff in 1993. The Hoyas had a 10-win improvement during his one season there, and the pitching staff had nearly a one-run improvement in its earned run average from the previous season. Jones then served as the pitching coach at the University of West Alabama from 1994-96. The Division II power was ranked 26th nationally in 1995 and 32nd the following season. The pitching staff that Jones coached during the 1995 and 1996 seasons had the lowest-combined ERA in over 40 years at that school. In two years, three pitchers earned All-Region honors, one was named a preseason All-American and five were signed to professional contracts.
Jones earned his first head coaching experience at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania, where he worked from 1996-99. In three years, the program showed a dramatic turnaround, winning only nine games in his first and then winning 22 games in his second season. The 13-game improvement made the Golden Knights the most-improved team in the country that season.
A native of Maryland, Jones coached the Alaska Goldpanners of the Alaskan Collegiate League last summer and spent the summer of 2000 coaching a pro team in Czechoslovakia, where he also had the additional duties of serving as the pitching coach for the Czech National Team.
During the summers, Jones has served as a pitching coach in the Frontier League, with the Chillicothe (Ohio) Paints in 1999, and with the Zanesville (Ohio) Greys from 1994-96.
He earned his bachelors degree from Regents College, and earned a masters in physical education at West Alabama.
