Softball at the Point

Julie Jones
Positive Performance™ Certified Mental Training Coach & Visualization Specialist

Julie Jones spent 26 years leading Division I softball programs with her mission being simple - to build smarter students, stronger athletes and better people.  Continuing her work of helping student-athletes reach their goals on and off the field, Coach Jones now serves as a partner in Softball at the Point, LLC, a college camp and showcase organization with her long-time associate head coach and friend, Julie Pratt.  Coach Jones is also the founder of SSB Performance, LLC through which she works with athletes, high school and college coaches and teams as a Positive Performance Certified Mindset Coach and Visualization Specialist.

During her 13 years at both Cleveland State University (1993 – 2006) and the University of Akron (2006 – 2019), Coach Jones mentored five Academic All-Americans, 55 All-Conference honorees, eight NCAA All-Mideast Region selections, 86 Academic all-conference student-athletes, thirteen Academic All-District selections, four Pitchers of the Year, the 1997 MCC Player of the Year, the 2016 prestigious MAC Nan Harvey award winner, and the 2017 MAC Freshman Pitcher of the Year. These honorees and their teammates rewrote the CSU and UA record books for pitching, home runs in a season and in all base running categories as a perennial NCAA leader in stolen bases. Jones ended her time at CSU with the most wins in school history of any sport.  Jones finished her career with more than 500 career victories.  Five of her former players have been inducted into the CSU Athletics Hall of Fame.

With an emphasis on academics in and out of season, the Vikings and Zips posted GPAs as high as 3.53 and raked atop all Division I programs year after year.

Along with athletic and academic achievements, Jones always stressed the importance of giving back to the community as her teams contributed to many community projects over the years, winning conference awards year after year for their commitment to the community,

During her tenure at CSU, Coach Jones also served as the Compliance Coordinator for the Vikings.  This experience working directly with the NCAA rules has proved to be extremely valuable in her work with athletes as they pursue their goals of becoming a college softball player.

Coach Jones graduated with a degree in Communications from Baldwin-Wallace University and earned a Masters Degree in Communication Theory and Methodology from Cleveland State University.  She was inducted into the Baldwin-Wallace College Athletics Hall of Fame in 2003 and the Summit County Softball Hall of Fame in 2018.  She is a graduate of Leadership Akron (Class 28) and the prestigious NACWA/HERS Administrative Institute in 2005. 

Coach Jones is a member of the Baldwin-Wallace Brown & Gold Club Athletics Board, she sits on the Akron Amateur Softball Association Board and serves as Chair of the Gay Community Endowment Fund of the Akron Community Foundation. 

A breast cancer survivor, Coach Jones is a 7-time Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure Survivor winner and her Akron Garfield High School #9 jersey was retired. Coach Jones was an All-Conference, All-Region and NFCA Academic All-American catcher and 4-year starter at Baldwin-Wallace University, leading her team to the NCAA Tournament as a senior.  She and pitcher Donna Wheeler set the all-time DIII record for strikes outs in a career.