Chris Croft returns for his fourth season on Coach
Doc Sadler's staff, where he has served as director of operations since Sadler
took over the Husker basketball program in 2006.
With the Huskers, Croft has
been the primary day-to-day administrator within the basketball office, where
he handles the budget, clinics, camps and daily office operations. He also is
heavily involved with team scheduling and the Huskers' community involvement
and Life Skills programs. Croft also helps coordinate the Huskers' public
speaking efforts, both for players and the coaching staff.
Another integral part of
Croft's position is handling team travel, including all postseason trips. Croft
assisted Sadler and the Huskers to the postseason each of the past two years at
Nebraska, the
first time in a decade NU has earned a berth in the postseason in consecutive
years. Overall, Croft has aided teams to the postseason in three of the four
years he's worked under Sadler.
Croft came to Nebraska from UTEP,
where he served as a program specialist for one season with Sadler's staff. He
oversaw several administrative areas for the Miners as the squad reached the
National Invitation Tournament in 2006.
An experienced coach and
savvy basketball administrator, Croft also has an impressive basketball
coaching background. During his career, Croft has previously served stints as
an assistant coach in the Big 12 and Pac-10 conferences and has been a head
coach at the NAIA level.
Following eight years as a
Division I assistant coach, Croft was named head coach at Martin Methodist (Tenn.) College at the
age of 30. Croft's first squad in 2003-04 won 22 games and grabbed the
TranSouth Conference title - the first in school history - while also advancing
to the NAIA national tournament. He was the first coach in league history to
win a championship in his initial season as a head coach, and also was the
youngest coach in league history to win the championship. He led his team to 13
road wins to rank second nationally across all divisions of four-year colleges.
Croft's team led the conference in scoring defense and he coached four
all-conference players and seven academic all-conference student-athletes.
Croft broke into the
coaching profession as an undergraduate student assistant at East Central (Miss.) CC from 1991 to
1993. While at ECCC, he was part of a state championship team and the squad
also made two regional tournament appearances. Croft then assisted M.K. Turk at
Southern Mississippi as an undergraduate
before being named an assistant coach at USM at age 22 in 1995.
Croft helped USM to two NIT
appearances before moving to the Big 12 under coach Eddie Sutton in an
administrative position at Oklahoma
State before the 1996-97
season. In two seasons with the Cowboys, Croft helped OSU to a pair of postseason
appearances, including reaching the second round of the 1998 NCAA Tournament.
He then moved on to Maryland Eastern Shore for one year in a recruiting
capacity before spending four seasons (1999-2000 to 2002-2003) at Washington State. Croft also was the head coach for
the Planet Basketball All-Star team that toured New Zealand in the summer of 2001.
Croft earned his bachelor's
degree in coaching and sports administration from Southern Miss in 1995 and
received a master's degree in human performance in 1996. Croft completed his
doctoral degree in educational leadership and administration through UTEP in
2008.
This
manuscript focuses on the complexities and implications revolving around the
National Letter of Intent (NLI) process for intercollegiate basketball
student-athletes. The NLI is a legally
binding document that obliges the student-athlete to attend a given college for
one year and outlines the provisions associated with their athletic
scholarship. Collegiate basketball
coaches work in a volatile environment and frequent position changes create a
myriad of challenges for the student-athlete.
Based on current research and researcher opinion, a framework is
outlined which could potentially give student-athletes additional options and
streamline the overall process.
This paper focuses
on the recently passed NCAA legislation relating to higher academic standards
for athletics and the far-reaching impact this legislation will enact on first
and second year Division I college basketball coaches. The academic progress
report, referred to as APR, outlines higher minimum academic standards for all
Division I athletic sports. The APR focuses on both retention rates and
graduation rates. The APR’s ultimate objective is to implement short-term goals
for retention in order to help achieve long-term goals for graduation. Failure
to meet these minimum standards will induce specific sport penalties. These
repercussions can have immediate and drastic setbacks for first-year and
second-year Division I college basketball coaches who inherit a program either
already facing penalties or who are close to facing penalties due to prior
academic shortcomings by the previous head coach.
This article is a focus on the roles and responsibilities of
the academic success of student athletes. These responsibilities include a
collaboration between academia and athletics along with specific attention
towards the student athlete and NCAA regulations created to promote academic
growth. Student athlete reforms of Proposition 48, academic progress report
(APR), graduation rates and athlete loads are discussed along with the
development and implementation of student athlete service programs that include
orientation, career and life skills development, career planning and placement,
CHAMP life skills, academic advising and monitoring eligibility, and academic
support services.
