Former college coach Jana Shipley to speak at HOJGA Banquet
MARION — Unlike the athletes she'll be speaking to, Jana Shipley was late to the game of golf.
Nevertheless, the former Ohio State and Ohio Wesleyan women's golf coach will be the featured speaker at this year's Heart of Ohio Junior Golf Association Banquet scheduled for July 28 at Kings Mill Golf Course in Waldo.
When Shipley was a student at Big Walnut in the 1970s, track and field was her outlet as well as girls basketball and volleyball. She went on to star at Ohio State in track where she specialized in the pentathlon, setting an OSU record in that event.
In one season as a junior high boys and girls track coach back home at Big Walnut in 1980, she learned the pole vault in order to teach her male athletes. In doing so, she became a pioneer in women's pole vault, setting national and world records in the early stages of competition in the discipline for females.
She graduated from Ohio State in 1979 and earned her masters degree from the school in 1981.
In 1980, she was hired as the head women's track and field coach at Ohio Wesleyan. Shipley helped the Battling Bishops to the first North Coast Athletic Conference indoor track and field championship in 1985 as well as multiple state titles in the Ohio Association of Intercollegiate Sports for Women (OAISW) in the years before Ohio Wesleyan women's teams were affiliated with an athletic conference.
In the 1980s, she started playing golf at Mill Creek in Ostrander and soon grew to love the sport, eventually switching career paths from track to golf. She left coaching to become an assistant at the Country Club of Muirfield for two years before being hired at Ohio State to be the head coach of the women's golf program in 1987.
With the Buckeyes, she led them to a Big Ten championship and two NCAA berths before resigning in 1991 to start a family.
Shipley stayed active in golf, competing in regional and national tournaments. She qualified for the USGA Mid-Amateur and finished second at the Women's National Club Championship.
She has also worked as a golf professional at Muirfield, The Ohio State University Golf Courses, and The Meadows Resort in Sarasota, Fla.
In 2010, Shipley returned to Ohio Wesleyan and coaching by starting the new women's golf program at the school. She remained at OWU for 10 years before her position was eliminated due to the fallout of the COVID-19 shutdown. In her tenure with the Bishops, they won six tournaments.
Today, Shipley runs a youth program at Mill Creek where 33 golfers are learning the game.
This article originally appeared on Marion Star: Jana Shipley to speak at Heart of Ohio Junior Golf Association Banque
