Shelly Jones is entering her fifth season as the top assistant for the Lady Panthers basketball program when Drury tips off the 2011-12 campaign this winter.
In addition to serving a valuable role with her game knowledge from the bench, Jones has been pivotal in helping recruit the talent base that has helped the Lady Panthers win Great Lakes Valley Conference championships in two of her previous four seasons at DU and four consecutive NCAA-II Tournament appearances that now pushes the Lady Panthers' total to nine straight years of post-season competition. In those four seasons that she has teammed on the DU bench with head coach Steve Harold, the Lady Panthers have compiled 28, 19, 28 and 20 victories for a 95-31 overall mark.
Before joining the Drury program prior to the 2007-08 season, Jones had spent the previous two seasons as an assistant at Southwest Baptist University, but was better known in the Ozarks as the highly successful head coach at Parkview High School for eight seasons before leaving for SBU..
At Parkview, Jones led the Lady Vikings to runner-up finishes in the Ozark Conference and Class 4 district play for three straight years and compiled a 134-73 (.544) overall record, producing 16 players who continued their careers at the collegiate level.
Prior to her time at Parkview, Jones was the head coach at Henry County H.S. in Paris, Tennessee, where she was named Coach of the Year in 1997. Over her career, she has complied a 225-102 record as a head coach.
Jones received her bachelor's degree from Austin Peay State University in 1991 for secondary education. She played two years of basketball at Paducah (KY) Community College and then finished her career as a player at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. While at Paducah C.C., she was the team MVP both years.
