LaBrae boys’ basketball Coach Chad Kiser knows firsthand what it feels like to be a part of a small program but still get the job done. He now joins an elite club of high school coaches, having reached his 300th career coaching victory this past season when the Vikings defeated Hubbard on Jan. 3.
“It is a prestigious club,” Kiser told The Weekly Villager. “There are a whole lot of them in the area. I have some guys with quite a few wins in front of me that I have learned a lot from and seen what it takes to get to the prestigious numbers like that, so 300 is an elite club and I am proud of that.”
The 1994 Windham graduate reached his 300th coaching victory early in the 2023-24 season and now holds a coaching record of 313-110 in 19 seasons at the helm of the Vikings. While he takes pride in achieving another coaching milestone, he is most proud that of the 19 seasons he has spent at LaBrae, his squad has finished with a losing record just once.
“They get after it and they work hard and we do not have a lot of numbers and a lot of guys so we just have to make sure that the little group that we have is trying to outwork everybody else and they are playing harder,” he said.
Although the Viking squads have grown smaller each season, they have always carried the same tenacity and fight that was instilled in Kiser when he played basketball at Windham under Coach Marty Hill. Playing for one of the winningest coaches in Portage County history taught him a great deal of what small programs can be capable of with proper coaching.
“When you know what it is like to come from a program where you practiced every day, you just did not show up, you were coached hard and you knew what it took to win and expected to win,” he said. “Kids were rising to whatever expectations you have for them and I was blessed for a place that had the best high school coach that had ever been around.”
According to Kiser, seeing how Hill connected with and mentored his athletes always stuck with him. He said that Hill even approached him once during his senior year and told him he would make a great coach and teacher. Hill noted that he had grown into a leadership role when he played point guard as a Bomber.
He started his coaching career only two years after he graduated from Windham, becoming a junior high football coach alongside Hill.
In 1999, he followed fellow Windham graduate Greg Isler to LaBrae and served as his junior varsity basketball coach for eight seasons before being elevated to head coach. When they arrived at LaBrae, the school was not known for having a prestigious basketball program and was more well-known for its track and football programs.
As much as Kiser learned from playing and coaching with Hill, he acknowledged the impact that Isler also had on shaping him as a coach.
“I would not be in that position without Coach Isler. He brought me over to LaBrae and played for Coach Hill, so we had the same mentality. He coached me as well in junior high so his belief in me went hand-in-hand with Coach Hill’s,” he said.
Having played and coached at such a small school as Windham, Kiser said that it was an adjustment when he moved over to LaBrae, which was a larger school district at the time. Although the enrollment numbers have grown smaller over the years, Kiser has kept the program consistent by relying on his experiences from Windham.
Under Kiser’s leadership, the Vikings have won six conference titles and reached the Ohio High School Athletic Association Division III Final Four during the 2012-13 season.
No matter the season, Kiser always has had his teams ready to compete and embrace being the underdogs.
“They are all special but that was probably the peak and the most success that we have had,” he added. “You also have those seasons where they won a couple of district tournaments when we were the underdogs and no one was expecting us to do that and we were able to get it done.”
Although Kiser has set down some roots in LaBrae after 25 years as a coach and a teacher in the school district, he still takes pride in having been a Windham Bomber first.
“I think I have become a part of the LaBrae family,” he said. “I think most people would recognize me as a Windham person but now people now know me as more of a LaBrae guy and that is probably more of me now, but I still feel like a Windham Bomber.”
