Che’ Jones is a native Las Vegan who played college basketball at the Ohio State University-Newark, where he ended his career as the second all-time leading scorer in Ohio State University-Newark history, scoring 1,693 points. Jones also finished his career at Ohio State-Newark second in assists and notched the highest free-throw percentage for a season shooting 91.9%. He’s also the all-time leader in three-point field goals made, as well as the all-time leader in steals. The University honored him by retiring his jersey (#5) on February 26, 2001. Jones also played professionally in Cyprus.
Coach Jones returns home to the College of Southern Nevada after having last coached at Phoenix College where he endured great success. After helping the Bears win the 2014 NJCAA National Championship the Bears returned to the NJCAA National Tournament in 2015 only to lose in the Final Four. Aside from winning the National Championship the 2014 Bears coaching staff won multiple Coach of the Year awards including Sporting News and the NABC National Coach of the Year awards, as well as the ACCAC Conference Coach of the Year awards and in 2015 PG, Brandon Brown won National Player of the Year.
Prior to Phoenix College Jones coached at Northern Arizona University, where he coached all-conference and future pro DeWayne Russell. He also had previous stops as an associate head coach at Glen Oaks Community College in Centreville, Michigan and at Albion College (NCAA Div-III) in Albion, Michigan. During the 2007-2008 season he was the head assistant coach at Casper College in Casper, Wyoming.
He has also coached in the American Basketball Association (ABA) with the Las Vegas Venom and as an assistant coach to George Tarkanian, son of famed coach Jerry Tarkanian, with the Las Vegas Stars of the IBL (International Basketball League). Che' also coached at Urbana University in Urbana, Ohio and began his collegiate coaching career at Columbus State Community College in Columbus, OH where the Cougars were ranked number one in the country for the entire season and ended the 2003-04 season at 29-2 after losing to the eventual National Champion in the NJCAA Regional Championship game.
Coach Jones has been married to Leslie for 23 years and they have two sons, Che’ who is currently in college and Clemente’ who is a local high school athlete.
