Jason Gillespie and Matt Stearsman have joined the Reinhardt University athletic department as the head coach and as an assistant coach, respectively, for the men’s basketball team. Gillespie, who has been a head coach at the collegiate level for nine years, is in charge of handling all aspects associated with Reinhardt’s intercollegiate men’s basketball program, which competes in NAIA Division II and the Appalachian Athletic Conference, with Stearsman serving as his top assistant.
Gillespie takes over for Jeffrey Pourchier, who spent the last five seasons as the Eagles’ head coach. Pourchier was recently named as the head men’s basketball coach at NAIA Division I Southern Polytechnic State University in Marietta, Ga.
Gillespie comes to Reinhardt from Virginia Intermont College, an AAC member located in Bristol, Va. He spent the past three seasons as the athletic director and head men’s basketball coach at Cincinnati (Ohio) Christian University — where he guided the school’s move to NAIA membership — after four successful years at Bluefield (Va.) College, which is also affiliated with the AAC. As the head men’s basketball coach at Bluefield, Gillespie was twice named the AAC Coach of the Year and led the Rams to three straight NAIA Division II national tournament appearances in 2007, 2008 and 2009. His final team at Bluefield in 2008-09 finished 27-7 overall, a perfect 18-0 in conference regular-season play and ranked eighth nationally. Gillespie was the head men’s basketball coach and an assistant athletic director at Cincinnati Christian from 2003-05 after being at King College in Bristol, Tenn., from 2000-03. At King, he was an assistant men’s basketball coach, the head coach of the junior varsity men’s basketball squad, the head men’s golf coach and the athletic facility coordinator. Gillespie was an administrative assistant coach with the men’s basketball program at NCAA Division I Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville from 1998-2000 and he began his coaching career as an assistant men’s basketball coach and the head JV coach at NCAA Division III Methodist University in Fayetteville, N.C.
Stay with HoopDirt for the latest college basketball coaching news and rumors.
