By TYLER ROMANO
Contributing Writer
Nick Jones, a former All-American pole vaulter in high school and successful college athlete at UAlbany, continued his success after graduation as a cross-country and track coach across the state at the high school and college level before joining the College this fall.
While coaching at Russell Sage in only one year, the team set 27 school records, had the first male Empire 8 Conference Champion in school history, and produced both the conference indoor and outdoor Rookie of the Year. That followed similar success at Plattsburgh State, where he coached for ten years. The Cardinals established 42 school records and generated 51 conference champions, 32 NCAA qualifiers, and seven All-Americans throughout Jones’ tenure.
However, his coaching success did not translate to his first cross-country season at the College, where both the men and women’s team finished 12th out of 13th in the NE-10 Conference.
“I think we have a lot of talent that might have been a little bit under-coached in the past, so I’m excited to teach them the stuff that I know, and I can tell they’re ready to learn and see improvement,” said Jones.
A fresh coach and a fresh culture seems to be inspiring the runners. “The new culture and how the team is working together is really exciting, along with the team bonding experiences we have outside of practice and meets,” said sophomore runner Brooke Iannone.
“Our training is a lot more demanding, but that’s good, and it’s brought out the best in us as we are hitting our personal and team goals,” said sophomore runner Matthew Waruch.
Jones emphasizes individual attention in his coaching and values how smaller programs let him do that, which is very different from what he experienced as a student athlete at UAlbany. “I don’t ever want to be so big that I can’t give individual attention,” he said. “That’s where I’ve really seen people thrive. I’m always trying to do things better than how they were done with me.”
Continuing to learn also plays an important role in his coaching. “I’ve learned by leaps and bounds every single year, and I just try not to make the same mistake twice. So it’s taken me a long time to get to this point where I’m touring and teaching these athletes a lot of different things on and off the track.”
“Coaching has evolved over those years. I’ve been at it for a decade. But there are some old school coaches in my experience in the past, and I’m trying to do things more with using the latest with science and psychology,” said Jones.
Throughout his decade at Plattsburgh State, Jones helped steadily improve the men’s and women’s track and field team rise in the hierarchy of SUNYAC sports. The women’s team is now consistently a top-four team annually, while the men boasted their best conference finish since 2005-06 when they took fifth at the conference indoor championships in 2019-20.
While he was there, he helped many student-athletes receive All-America honors. In particular, he helped Stephanie Boucher earn the honor three times. She also was the conference’s Track Athlete of the Year for two consecutive years. Victoria Whimple and Elisabeth Plympton also became All-Americans at the Division Three National Track Championships during his tenure.
Jones appreciates the hunger for knowledge his new athletes have shown, and has high hopes for the team going forward in the coming years, despite this year’s disappointing results.
“I see our future being bright. We just brought in a tremendous new assistant coach, Eric Smith, and we need to just let student athletes know that Saint Rose has an improving running program where kids are excited to be out there and work hard everyday,” said Jones.
