Columbus Crew hire former academy director Kelvin Jones as new Crew 2 head coach
The Crew announced that they have promoted former academy director Kelvin Jones to coach Crew 2.
Jones replaces Laurent Courtois, who became the first MLS NEXT Pro head coach to be hired to take of at the helm of the first team level. Courtois was hired by CF Montreal as head coach in January,
Jones has been with the Crew since 2017, starting as the academy's U-12 coach and after moving through the ranks, being named the academy director in 2020.
Jones worked his way back to the coaching side in 2023, most recently as the club's UPSL coach while also taking care of assistant academy director duties.
"It's an honor to be trusted by leadership to kind of head this next phase of what the Crew 2 programming looks like," Jones said. "So first and foremost, honored and excited. I've always wanted to continue to be challenged and have always embraced new opportunity."
Jones was also a player in the USL starting back in 2004.
As academy director, Jones helped acquire some of the players that make up Crew 2.
"This is a whole new group of players (for Crew 2), and this group of players is younger, at an earlier developmental stage and are predominantly homegrown," said Crew 2 general manager Corey Wray. "So that made Kelvin an immediate person on our shortlist. And then from there, he did a really good job within that process of describing who he was as a person and his values, which we know, but really diving into that and making sure the fit was right."
Jones will start his reign as the Crew 2 coach as the team opens up their third season on Sunday. During the two seasons with Courtois, the club won an MLS NEXT Pro championship in 2022 and made it to the finals in 2023.
Get more Columbus Crew content by listening to our podcast
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Crew hire Kelvin Jones as new Crew 2 head coach
