MARK CHRISTNER – CALVIN UNIVERSITY WOMEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 863

Website – https://calvinknights.com/sports/womens-basketball

Email – mcc3@calvin.edu

Twitter – @CoachChristner

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Mark Christner is in his fifth year as the Women’s Basketball Head Coach at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Christner has an overall won-loss record of 62-30 in his four seasons including a conference record of 36-17. He has led the Knights to four consecutive trips to the MIAA Tournament semifinals. In 2023, he led Calvin to its first 20-win campaign since 2017. The Knights were nationally-ranked for 11 weeks during the 2022-23 campaign. His teams have achieved in the classroom as all four of his Calvin teams have received the MIAA Team GPA Award for posting a cumulative team grade point average of 3.30 or above.

Christner spent the previous nine years as head men’s basketball coach at Waynesburg University (Pa.). Prior to serving as head men’s basketball coach at Waynesburg, Christner spent eight years as an assistant coach with the Calvin men’s basketball program and three years as an assistant coach with the Calvin women’s basketball program.

Christner graduated from Calvin in 1999, where he played two years on the Calvin junior varsity men’s basketball team and one year on the varsity.

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Be sure to take some notes as you listen to this episode with Women’s Basketball Head Coach at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

What We Discuss with Mark Christner

• Being a “driveway hoops” kid
• His first basketball role model was Sean Waters, the son of Gary Waters
• Learning from a cross country coach who really demonstrated a vision of how to plan and prep a team for something to accomplish later in the year.
• The value in participating in multiple sports
• His memories of high school basketball
• His decision to attend Calvin so he could continue to play
• “This small college world in the Midwest can be a really good place to play and to learn the game.”
• Becoming a student assistant coach during his senior year at Calvin at the suggestion of his head coach
• Learning how to separate basketball from home life after living with two team captains while he was a student assistant
• Being hired as a women’s assistant at Calvin in the fall after he graduated
• “I found the women to be attentive. I think they were eager learners and we just had a lot of fun.”
• “I’m sure there’s some things athletically that obviously are different, but the game’s the same. The competitiveness is the same and you’re trying to put players in position to be successful.”
• “I think you need to be able to identify what’s going on and then play people that are going to do what you want them to do.”
• Why all coaches need to actually coach games, no matter what level, to speed up their learning curve
• The chance to work for his college head coach back at Calvin
• Taking over the men’s head coaching job at Waynesburg
• The need to sustain the culture after you’ve built it
• “Be able to define the terms that are important to us,  give real life examples and have it be a pathway to greater conversation as the year goes on”
• “Women might be a little less apt to want to lead and so I think you have to ask them”
• Clear is kind, unclear is unkind
• “Leaders can have a kind of a bad day on the court, maybe in terms of missing shots, or maybe feeling like they don’t play well, but they can’t really have a bad day from a connectivity piece.”
• “They have to be attentive to everybody on the roster. And that’s a big responsibility.  And that’s not a responsibility that everybody wants to have”
• Thinking about potential leaders two years in advance
• “I think part of our job is to equip and mentor our players for life after college.”
• “I don’t think there’s a better gift you can try to give your players than the gift of leading.”
• “I would like our practices to be as competitive as possible every day. And so that’s kind of the framework that we operate from.”
• “We want to hone in on the stuff in the game that happens a lot and teach our players different reads and how to react in those scenarios.”
• “I would like to make sure that the stuff that I feel is really important is probably in the middle of practice, because I think that’s when our players are probably at their peak concentration level.”
• Taking notes in practice to aid in the next day’s practice planning
• Why he posts his practice in the locker room every day for his players to see
• Creating a “game card” with sets, ATO’s, personnel groups to help visualize the game and anticipate different scenarios
• The Calvin-Hope rivalry
• “I’m really grateful for the people that have poured into me and that have encouraged me and the relationships that I have”

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THANKS, MARK CHRISTNER

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TRANSCRIPT FOR MARK CHRISTNER – CALVIN UNIVERSITY WOMEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 863