Talladega College Director of Athletics Kevin Herod announced the hiring of Chris Wright as the new Head Coach for the Men’s Basketball program.
We are excited to have secured Coach Wright to be our next Head Men’s Basketball coach. He has not only a great understanding of the NAIA but has also had success at the NAIA level both on and off the court said Kevin Herod.
Coach Wright “I am extremely honored to serve as the Head Coach at Talladega College. This is a very historic and special place for so many reasons. I want to sincerely thank Dr. Hawkins, Athletic Director Coach Herod, Assistant Athletic Director Demond Walker, and the entire search committee for this amazing opportunity. There is an incredible amount of pride and passion in the basketball program here. I’m very excited to be at a place where winning at the highest level truly matters. I have no doubt that we will consistently compete for national championships while graduating our student-athletes and growing them as men.”
Wright comes to Talladega College from Central Baptist College (CBC), a member of the NAIA and the American Midwest Conference, located in Conway, Ark. In his first season there, he led the Mustangs to a 21-9 record, and he guided the team to the program’s first NAIA Men’s Basketball Coaches’ Top 25 ranking, as well as the team’s first-ever NAIA National Championship Tournament appearance.
In 2016-2017 he was an Assistant Coach at NCAA Division II powerhouse Angelo State University. The Rams were ranked as high as fifth in the country, won 17 games, and advanced to the Lone Star Conference Championship. Wright was instrumental in signing the number one ranked junior college point guard in the country and helping the program achieve the highest team GPA in program history.
He spent the 2015-2016 season as the head coach at Graceland University. He was able to engineer an 11 game improvement of the school’s previous six-win season and guided the Yellowjackets to only their second winning season in the past 21 years. The team was also able to advance to the Heart of America Conference semifinals and won six games against Top 25 opponents, including defeating Mid-American Nazarene for the first time in 25 games.
In 2014-2015 Wright served as assistant coach at Arkansas Tech University. He helped lead the Wonderboys to an 18-win season, a Great American Conference Tournament Championship, and a trip to the NCAA Division II National Tournament.
Prior to coming to Arkansas Tech Wright spent four seasons as the head coach at Fresno Pacific University. He has posted an overall record of 67-52 and led the team to two 20-win seasons as the head coach at FPU. In the Sunbirds first year of Division II competition, Wright led Fresno Pacific to a second-place finish in the 14-team Pacific West Conference. The Sunbirds led the conference in scoring at 89 points per game and were the only team to defeat every other team in the league at least once. The Sunbirds finished the season in dominant fashion winning 14 out of their 15 final regular season games. Had Fresno Pacific been eligible for postseason play the Sunbirds would have qualified for the NCAA Tournament. FPU was led by former National Junior College Player of the Year, John Taylor who led all of college basketball in scoring at 27.5 ppg.
In his first year as head coach, the Sunbirds finished the season 20-11, despite only returning one player in the team’s rotation from the previous season. The team cracked the top 25 but narrowly missed the NAIA National Tournament.
Before becoming the head coach at Fresno Pacific, Wright spent four seasons as the top assistant and recruiting coordinator at FPU before being promoted to Associate Head Coach in 2009. While at FPU, he has established himself as one of small-college basketball’s premier recruiters. His efforts in recruiting have helped transform the program from a bottom-tier GSAC team to a nationally prominent program. Wright has also coached 10 All-American selections and 15 all-conference selections during his tenure at FPU. 16 players that he has coached in Fresno have played professionally overseas, including James Lewis who was the program’s first-ever NBA D-League draftee.
In the last seven years at Fresno Pacific, Wright helped the Sunbirds compile 140 wins and were a part of five of the best eight seasons in the program’s history. The Sunbirds knocked off two Division I opponents, USC and the University of San Francisco in that span.
The recruiting classes that Wright put together as the recruiting coordinator in 2008 and 2009 paid huge dividends as FPU won 51 games and made two trips to the NAIA National Tournament in those seasons. In 2008-2009 the Sunbirds won a school-record 26 games while convincingly winning the Golden State Athletic Conference regular-season title and appearing in the NAIA National Tournament for only the second time in the program’s history. FPU climbed as high as 6th in the national rankings before finishing 9th in the final poll.
In 2009-2010 the Sunbirds once again did not disappoint as they went 25-9, good enough for the second-best record in school history. FPU advanced to the “Sweet Sixteen” of the NAIA National Tournament after defeating ninth-seeded Campbellsville in the first round. The Sunbirds reached as high as #3 in the national rankings and defeated four top 10 teams, along with ten teams ranked in the top 25.
Before his time in Fresno, Wright served on staff during the 2005-06 season at NCAA Division I Texas State University under Head Coach and former NBA player Dennis Nutt. He also worked from 2003-2005 as an assistant at Division II St. Edward’s University in Austin, under Coach Ryan Marks.
During the 2002-03 season, Wright served as an assistant at Prestonwood Christian Academy in Plano, Texas. It was there that he helped produce a 10-game improvement from the previous season, while also helping the team reach the program’s first-ever playoff bid.
