Chad Lister’s sweet 16: Coaching edition

Chad Lister’s sweet 16: Coaching edition

Sydney Taylor, Staff Writer

North Greenville University has had the same head men’s basketball coach for 16 years. Chad Lister grew up in the city of Greer. As a child, he played a couple of sports: basketball and baseball. He mainly played basketball, starting at the age of six and later picked up baseball as well. The baseball track was not the track he necessarily wanted to run all the way with.

He went into Greer High School playing basketball and when asked about wanting to get recruited for college basketball, Lister said, “Well, I always wanted to go to Furman. My dad went there and that’s the place I saw myself. As for basketball, I didn’t think I was good enough for D1 ball.”

So that’s what Lister did. He went on to attend school at Furman University, but did not play basketball. Once he was out of college, he started coaching at Strom Thurmond High School located in Johnson, a town in Edgefield County. He was there for three years before he left to coach at Eastside High School in Taylors.

Lister admitted, “I left a really good job at Strom Thurman to move closer to the Upstate for my family, it was all in God’s hands and I had to trust He would lead me in the right place.” After being at Eastside for four years, the head coaching job at NGU became available and this was a good move because it was his goal of coaching at the college level but not having to pick up his family and move.

In his most recent season he coached, the team finished sixth in the conference after being preseason picked eight. “We exceeded expectations in our finishing rank and also beat Limestone College for the first time in NGU history,” said Lister.

Lister has high expectations for next season. He stated that all his players seemed loyal and didn’t expect any players to be transferring, leaving him with his team from this past season minus two players. Lister said, “A lot of good, young players are coming back and bringing with them talent and leadership to the team.”

He wrapped up by saying, “After 16 years, I still enjoy coming to work and everyone on staff. I’ve put in a lot of time and I just want to make this team and program about more than just basketball.”