Legendary Spring Valley track coach retiring. His legacy extends beyond success
South Carolina track and field will lose its biggest voice when John Jones’ head coaching career comes to an end this weekend.
The longtime Spring Valley coach will end his run when the S.C. High School League track and field championships wrap up this weekend. The two-day event begins Friday and wraps up Saturday evening.
"He will be remembered for his voice for the coaches association. And even when you go to Spring Valley, you hear his voice as PA announcer for awards,” Northwestern High track and field coach Calvin Hudgins said. “During one of the coaches’ clinics, my daughter was working in a restaurant where he and some of the coaches were. And she said, 'I don’t know where you are but I could hear your voice.'
“He did so much for the sport. And every time you go to the state meet, you know it is going to be run well. There is going to be a huge void, and he is going to be hard to replace.”
But it will be Jones’ swan song after 39 years coaching track and field and cross country at the school. His accomplishments are numerous — five state track titles, one cross country state championship and two-time National Coach of the Year, to name a few. He is the only coach from South Carolina to win the national honor.
Since he arrived in 1980, Jones’ teams averaged a finish of 3.5 in state championships. The Vikings have won have 11 consecutive region titles and haven’t dropped a dual meet in that span. His teams have traveled all across the Southeast and throughout country competing.
But it’s his work behind the scenes that will be remembered most by those around the state. Jones took the mantle from the late Bob Jenkins, who he considered one of his mentors, and helped grow the sport in South Carolina.
Hudgins said there probably isn’t a meaningful piece of legislation in the sport's state constitution that Jones didn’t introduce.
When Jones was president of the S.C. Track and Field and Cross Country Association, he rewrote the constitution of the association and how to better spend the group’s finances. Jones is responsible for how state qualifying is done, wrote the hall of fame bylaws and made sure that meet officials got paid. Before then, Jones said it was expected coaches would come and help with the meet for free.
Jones also changed the structure and location of the state track and field meet. The event always was held at the University of South Carolina before Jones moved it to Spring Valley and made it a two-day event.
Even before the event was moved, Jones and his staff, which includes Rick Crumpler (who has been with Jones 38 of 39 years) would haul all of their equipment to USC to make the event run smoothly and be better for the athletes.
“Years ago the state meet was a terrible meet. It wasn’t a good Saturday afternoon invitational,” Jones said. “Everything about it was bad. They didn’t announce the kids. They didn’t have an awards stand. Kids just went to a spot and picked up their medals. But when we moved it here we were able to put on a show.
“Coach Crumpler and I worked so hard in so many different ways to make the sport better in so many different ways. And we are glad with everything we have been able to do for the sport.”
Jones also founded Bojangles’ Classic (formerly Taco Bell Classic), which is regarded as one of the top high school meets in the country. It started with 13 schools and had 256 competing this year.
“I can see his genuine desire to make the sport better for the present athletes and future athletes,” said John Olson, editor of Scrunners.com. “As a former South Carolina high school runner myself, and supporter of the sport, he is someone that will be missed but not forgotten with what he has done for the sport and has motivated others to continue for, hopefully, years to come.”
Jones has no regrets about leaving now, adding he is in good health and will be able to enjoy his retirement. He still plans to be involved with the sport and will oversee the Bojangles’ Classic and be part of the SCTCCA.
Jones and his wife will be moving away from Columbia, where he has been since working at Fort Jackson in the 1970s, to Pawleys Island. He might offer his services to Waccamaw High, located in Pawleys Island, as an assistant track or cross country coach.
With having to host the state meet this week, Jones hasn’t had much time to think about the end of his time at Spring Valley, but it will probably hit him when he is leaving the track Saturday or turning in his keys at the end of the year.
“It has been everything and more,” Jones said. “Someone told me one time you can’t coach as a job. You coach as a hobby. Track and cross country have been pastimes I want to do. It sure hasn’t been about the money.
“It's always been fun. One of the most satisfying things is to see kids as a seventh-, eighth- or ninth-grader, just starting out in athletics and then seeing them as a senior. You see how they have grown and to think you might have had a little part in that. That’s been satisfying.”
This story was originally published May 11, 2018 at 1:39 PM with the headline "Legendary Spring Valley track coach retiring. His legacy extends beyond success."