The Charger coaching family is starting this school year with some new additions. Charger Basketball welcomed Ryan Choiniere (‘13) as an assistant coach at the end of May and July 8 marked Samantha Kearney’s Charger birthday, as she became Hillsdale’s new assistant cross country and track and field coach.
Choiniere graduated from Hillsdale last May after playing Charger Basketball and majoring in sports management. Kearney was an exercise science major, track athlete, and coach at the University of California-Davis before joining Hillsdale.
Choiniere said he is right where he wants to be, and his selection was straightforward.
“This is the long term goal. Coaching is what I wanted to do when I came to college and it just so happened that an opening arose when I graduated,” Choiniere said. “I’m thankful for the opportunity to stay at the place I fell in love with as a student.”
“I knew that Ryan wanted to be a college coach while he was still playing for us,” men’s basketball head coach John Tharp said in an email. “We sat down in early May before graduation to talk about the possibilities and responsibilities of the job.”
Kearney’s arrival was more laborious.
“It was a time-consuming selection process,” women’s cross country and track and field head coach Andrew Towne said. “We knew we were going to have an opening, so we utilized the NCAA market, which all coaches keep an eye on. We had many applicants.”
Towne said he narrowed the selection down to four people and arranged phone interviews with the remaining applicants. After the interviews, the selection was narrowed down to two people, one being coach Kearney. After a final formal interview, Kearney was selected.
Both new coaches’ unique qualifications for their positions are rooted in their own collegiate history.
Kearney said that her California background will add a particular personality to her coaching.
“She’s very real, especially in the recruiting process, and in earning a relationship with student-athletes,” Towne said. “She’s subtly aggressive, which I like because I’m just aggressive, and you need that for recruitment cold calls. She has an overall knack for it.”
Both Towne and Kearney herself expect that she will have some adjusting to do from California to Michigan, especially in winter.
As for Kearney’s connections to the DI school UC Davis, Towne says, “It doesn’t hurt in recruitment that she has a Division I background and has been around a few Olympians.”
For Choiniere, having been a Charger Basketball player himself prepared him to become a coach.
“Coach [Tharp] came to me in games as a player and I gave him my thoughts in games,” Choiniere said. “So it was a special relationship we had, and that transitioned well.”
Anthony Manno, a fifth-year senior who played with Choiniere, said, “He always knew where everyone on the floor was. Even though he wasn’t a point guard, he had the vision of a point guard.”
“He will be a tremendous asset communicating with our players,” Tharp said. “He also has a great basketball IQ.”
Choiniere’s Charger past does add an extra dynamic to his coaching.
“It’s a little awkward, but we who played with him have to remember to be respectful of him as an example for the younger players,” Manno said. “In my mind, he’s my friend, my teammate, and also my coach, and I have to treat him that way.”