Now the Braves hope to benefit from that knowledge. Coles, who previously coached at Division III Olivet College (Mich.), was approved by the school board last week.
“My dad coached everything, and by that I mean he didn’t just look at wins and losses,” Coles said. “He made sure the kids trained the right way, didn’t use bad language in the halls, stayed on track to graduate, which they did. Whether it was on the bus, in a restaurant, in school or on the court, he paid attention to everything.
“I just want to look at it like my dad did. He’s the reason why I coach, and I miss him every day.”
Coles, 48, had been looking to get back to the Oxford area, where his mother — a Talawanda grad — and sister still reside and where Charlie Coles was buried after his death on June 7, 2013. His niece, Jazz Bennett, plays on the Talawanda girls basketball team.
The opening with the boys basketball team gave him that extra push to return, and Talawanda is “not a pit stop” for him. Coles, a Saginaw, Mich., native, had previously spent three years on current Hamilton coach Sean Van Winkle’s staff at Ross and was a junior varsity coach at Talawanda for a year before that and with the middle school a year, in addition to other prep-level jobs in Ohio and Michigan.
As the head coach at Olivet, Coles was 23-77 in four seasons (2012-13 to 2015-16). He also has coached at Saginaw Valley State. At Talawanda, he replaces Eddie Glaser, who was 12-34 in two seasons as head coach.
“I wasn’t very good as a college coach in terms of wins and losses, but I’m most experienced at the high school level, and I’m glad to be back to high school coaching,” Coles said. “I didn’t recruit well enough to win at the college level. I worked hard, but the same things I did other places didn’t work there. I’m not shook by that, though. I love working with young people, and I’m grateful for the opportunity.”
Talawanda hasn’t experienced a winning season since 2008-09, but Coles is focused on starting with improvement before talking about a total program turnaround.
That goes back to his father’s way of doing things too.
“Every year, teams change,” Coles said. “Kids can improve. I want to let all the kids in the program know improvement is No. 1, especially in the summer. ‘Let’s get better’ is the main thing. Then the other thing is, ‘Let’s get well-rounded.’ I don’t want just want to be successful, but more importantly I want to help them feel better about themselves. Not just with basketball, but as young people.”
That passion for kids beyond their basketball skills was what stuck most with THS athletic director Wes Cole in the interviewing process. While the name recognition with Coles’ father is an added bonus, Talawanda looks forward to what Coles brings as a coach himself.
“Having the name will bring excitement, but him and his coaching abilities and the way he deals with people will bring excitement to the program as well,” Cole said. “I think he will just excite the kids by being Chris Coles. He relates well to people. That’s not something that’s easy these days, and he relates well with adults and the students, and everyone we talked with about Chris said same thing. He’s a top-notch coach and person.”
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