FRESH & FAMILIAR FACES
Chris Oliver Head Football Coach, GC Tigers
I
n the world of athletics, they say to never follow a coaching legend: you cannot achieve the same level of success, you won’t do things the right way, and you’ll need lots of luck.
The king of the 100-yard domain at Georgetown College for the last two-and-ahalf decades was the legendary leader Bill Cronin, a venerated National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) hall-of-famer who paced the sidelines at Toyota Stadium for more than 30 years as an assistant, offensive coordinator, and head coach. During his tenure, the Tigers achieved unprecedented success: 218 wins, 14 Mid-South Conference titles, and two NAIA national championships in 2000 and 2001 during an impressive run of appearances in four consecutive national championship games. That is legendary. But someone had to follow the legend and become the Tiger’s 28th head coach. The next man up is Chris Oliver, former head coach at rival Lindsey Wilson College, and he doesn’t count on luck. He relies on intense preparation, smart strategy, unyielding discipline, and an impeccable attention to detail. At first glance, his easy smile and approachable nature might cause you to think Coach Oliver is not so much the competitive type. Like many of his opponents who underestimated him, you’d be wrong. He has a cerebral kind of competitiveness that translates to his players’ physical competitiveness. He might be new, but he is already running his program with the sure confidence of a coach who has already reached the pinnacle of his profession, which he has, a national championship, in fact. Like a chess grandmaster playing checkers on the porch of Cracker Barrel, Oliver is a tactician, a strategist who begins defeating his opponents long before game-week preparations. He out-strategizes, out-thinks, outmaneuvers, and out-works opponents with his impeccable attention to detail and ability to adapt when needed, whether that’s by changing some minor detail in how he recruits in the off-season, or by bringing decoy pressure from a 3-3-5 defense to rattle the opposing quarterback.
GC MAGAZINE | SPRING 2022 11
His calendar is full, but he knows what every day holds and what needs to happen. He leaves little to chance and nothing to luck, except maybe the margin of victory, if that. He is fully in the moment because he trusts his preparations, and he expects success. “I would like to think I’ve had more success than someone who is less detail-oriented, and I think that that's been a big part of our ability to achieve our goals over the years,” says Oliver. “Being more organized and prepared for success translates to winning games, and it’s keeps us all moving in the direction of our goals.”
