Mercer head basketball coach Bob Hoffman announced Tuesday that Dale Layer has been added to the coaching staff at Mercer, bringing over three decades of coaching experience.
Layer brings a wealth of experience at many different levels to Macon including head coaching stints at Queens (N.C.), Colorado State and Liberty, leading those three programs to four NCAA Tournament berths. Overall in his career he has led teams to seven postseason appearances and has coached 26 players that have gone on to professional careers.
“I am so excited to be able to add Dale to our coaching staff,” Hoffman said. “His coaching experience at the NCAA Division I level and at the professional level will add value to our staff and our student-athletes. Dale is a class act who strives to improve those around him and I am confident his understanding of the game and his ability to develop student-athletes will make him a great addition to our basketball family.”
He spent this past season as an assistant coach with the Greensboro Swarm of the NBA’s Developmental League where he assisted in the development of Mike Tobey, the organization’s first Gatorade Call-up to the Charlotte Hornets.
Layer joined the Swarm after six seasons as head coach at Liberty. In his time there he led the Flames to a Big South Tournament Championship and NCAA Tournament appearance in 2013, set a school record for conference wins in a season (13) during the 2011 season and oversaw a 100 percent graduation rate of his seniors. He also coached Jesse Sanders, the 2011 Big South Player of the Year and only player in NCAA history to record a triple-double in four years of competition.
“I am both thankful and thrilled to have the opportunity to join Coach Hoffman’s staff,” Layer said. “The Bears are poised to have an exciting team this upcoming season and I hope to be able to contribute in any way possible.”
His head coaching tenure at Liberty was his second stint with the school after serving as an assistant coach with a season as an assistant at Marquette sandwiched in between. At Marquette, he helped the Golden Eagles reach the second round of the NCAA Tournament and a 24-9 mark, raking as high as eighth in the country at one point that season.
In his first stint at Liberty, he assisted in signing a recruiting class ranked 48th in the nation which included current Dallas Mavericks guard Seth Curry.
He made his first trip to Lynchburg following seven years as head coach at Colorado State where he led the Rams to 103 wins and an NCAA Tournament berth in 2003 off the heels of the program’s Mountain West Conference Tournament title, the first NCAA berth for the school in 13 years. He recruited and developed Jason Smith, an NBA first round draft pick that tallied over 1,500 points in his career while also overseeing a program that graduated 100 percent of its players that spent four years on campus.
He took the reigns over in Fort Collins, Colorado after a few seasons as an assistant coach with the Rams, helping guide the team to two top-25 wins in 1998 over UCLA and Utah followed by an NIT appearance in 1999.
Layer made the trip to Colorado after nine years as head coach and athletic director at Queens University in Charlotte. After starting the program following the university’s transition to a co-ed school in 1988, he led the royals to eight winning seasons in his nine years with over 165 wins and a pair of NCAA Division II Tournament appearances to go along with two conference tournament titles.
His coaching career began as an assistant at his alma mater, Eckerd College, in 1980 for a pair of seasons before spending a couple years as a graduate assistant at Eastern Kentucky before returning to Eckerd for five more seasons.
Layer graduated from Eckerd College in 1980 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and received his Master of Arts degree in counseling from Eastern Kentucky in 1983.
He is married to the former Brenda Peterson and the couple have three children: Valerie, Tim and Ethan.
