Ralph Willard established a standard for the people he hired to be his assistant coaches. In nearly two decades as a college basketball coach, he wanted assistants who wanted to become head coaches.
Jim Christian was one of those hires.
“I didn’t hire anyone who didn’t want that as their goal,” said Willard, who was head coach at Western Kentucky, Pittsburgh and Holy Cross from 1990-2009. “Those are the people who would expand their knowledge and relate to people and mature as people. You have to develop into a really good teacher. The kids you get, they need to get better. You’re the primary avenue to making that happen, the primary conduit.”
Introduced Thursday as Canisius’ men’s basketball coach, Christian was on Willard’s staff at Western Kentucky from 1990-92 and at Pittsburgh from 1996-99. Christian was Willard’s point guard in high school on Long Island and, as a player, he didn’t just direct Willard’s offense on the court. He elevated his teammates and understood the nuances of basketball on a cerebral level.
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Christian didn’t indicate his desire to be a coach at the time, but Willard saw the roots of what would make Christian a teacher and a leader in basketball, the same way he saw qualities that defined former assistants Tom Crean and Bobby Jones as head coaches. The way Christian worked with guards, or how he interacted with others. In fact, if Willard pictured Christian as being anything, besides a coach, it would be as a sociology teacher.
Christian, Willard said, knew how to relate with people, but he still wanted to find different ways to connect. It became a hallmark for Christian as he began a 34-year career in basketball that’s included head coaching jobs at Kent State, Ohio, TCU and Boston College.
At Canisius, Christian takes his first coaching job in more than three years, one he said he pursued with more gusto than any other job he’s sought. Now, he’s ready for the labor that comes with creating a revival at Canisius, which has had only one full winning season in the last eight.
“I was all for this,” Christian said. “I was like, ‘Let me find the right one for me.’ When this one opened, I said, ‘This could be one for me.’ A Jesuit school, the success I had at this level, maybe I can get an opportunity to talk to them. Whether it came or not, I was hoping, because I really wanted to get back at it. My drive to do it. But at the same time, I could have been at peace.”
From Oyster Bay to Boston and beyond
Christian played point guard for St. Dominic High School in Oyster Bay from 1979-83. If you’re a pop culture enthusiast, you might know Oyster Bay as a town on Long Island that’s better known as the home of pianist and singer Billy Joel, who penned a 1973 song about the North Shore hamlet that was released on his 2005 compilation album “My Lives,” and referenced the town in the 1973 song “The Ballad of Billy the Kid.”
Christian, Willard said, was someone who was charismatic and popular, but someone who also knew how to utilize and maximize the abilities of his teammates to achieve a common goal: winning.
Christian played at Boston University for an up-and-coming coach named Rick Pitino, now the head coach at St. John’s, but transferred to Rhode Island in 1985 after Pitino became the coach at Providence. Christian graduated from Rhode Island in 1988 with a degree in consumer affairs and played professional basketball in Australia for a year, but a playing career ultimately wasn’t in the cards.
The most logical next step was becoming a coach.
“You love it, when you’re playing, and when you stop playing, you never really find that connection you had when you’re on a team,” Christian said. “I think back to my high school coaches, my JV coach, who I still talk to, all the time. My high school coach, Ralph Willard, and he kind of got me into this business. You have to have mentors like that, and I have so many guys who played for me, and guys under my tree who are head coaches, so it’s fun for me.”
Christian joined Willard’s staff at Western Kentucky in 1990, the start of a résumé that better resembles a Rand McNally atlas, with ensuing stops in Western Pennsylvania, three of the four geographical corners of Ohio, the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and New England.
Herb Sendek, Santa Clara’s coach, found in his first exchanges with Christian in 1995 at Miami (Ohio) that he had a way to make others around him feel at ease. But he also had a quiet confidence, a tremendous work ethic, patience and perseverance.
“He hasn’t had a silver spoon in this profession,” Sendek said. “He’s had some really, really challenging jobs that have required monumental rebuilds when he’s taken over, and that’s really an important point, when you want to dig deep into your abilities as a head coach.
“He does a great job of making the most in any situation he finds himself in.”
The scenario at each school brought a different situation and a different outcome.
At Kent State, Christian continued the program’s established success and led the Golden Flashes to the NCAA Tournament twice and the National Invitation Tournament three times. One of his hires as an assistant was Rob Senderoff, who recently completed his 13th season as Kent State’s coach.
At TCU, Christian was 56-73 in four seasons, with only one season over .500. He went to Ohio in 2012 and led the Bobcats to the MAC regular-season title in 2013, but after two seasons, took his first Power Five job at Boston College.
His seven-year stretch in Chestnut Hill wasn’t fruitful. Christian had only one winning season (2017-18) and he was fired in February 2021, when the Eagles were 3-13. He admitted during his introduction Thursday at Canisius that he’d failed to meet his own expectations as coach of the Eagles.
That, however, was not the end.
“When something like that happens, there’s an inner process, you either blame others or you look inward when you try to figure out things that you’re doing,” Christian said. “My drive, at that point forward, was to get back and find a program that at the same time might need someone like me … where I can make a huge impact.”
Reigniting the flame
Christian spent the last two seasons in an administrative role with the Kent State men’s basketball program, but the fire to coach was never extinguished. It simply continued to burn at a low grade as Christian assisted the Golden Flashes in game-planning and practices.
“Once it’s in your blood, there’s few of us in this that can just easily walk away and do something else,” Sendek said. “The vast majority of coaches have a passion for what they do. It’s part of their fiber. It’s difficult to do anything else.”
Canisius will be Christian’s fifth head coaching job. But there’s a big difference between being labeled as a journeyman versus continuing to grow as a means for longevity.
“You have to evolve,” Christian said. “If you took any athlete at any school, and people who are like me who have done this as well, the good ones, the ones who are successful, they have evolved in so many ways. How they play. The kind of people they recruit. The kind of people they surround themselves with. The good ones do it.”
That evolution, combined with experience – which includes personal development, achievements and failures – grants a frame of reference.
“What experience does for all of us, is it gives us a greater perspective on making sure the important things are the important things and the things that aren’t quite as important that we don’t spend as much time worrying about the things that aren’t quite as important,” said Senderoff, who has been coaching since 1995, either as an assistant or a head coach. “I am sure that Canisius is going to get the best version of him because of all of the experiences that he’s had in the coaching profession, and his desire and hunger to want to do this, still.”
Challenge, excitement at Canisius
Turning around Canisius isn’t necessarily a herculean task, but one that will require a lot of planning and a lot of patience.
Canisius has one of the smallest basketball budgets in the MAAC, and one of the smallest gyms of the 13 teams in the MAAC, including Merrimack and Sacred Heart, which will join the conference in July. Canisius has had only one full winning season since 2015-16, when the Golden Griffins were 21-12 and 15-3 in the MAAC in 2017-18. The Griffs were 7-6 in 2020-21, a season abbreviated by Covid-19 stoppages.
The salary also is vastly different. Three years ago, USA Today reported Christian earned an annual salary exceeding $1.4 million at Boston College. Canisius’ job posting for a men’s basketball coach listed the starting salary at $250,000-$285,000.
If Christian had no shot at winning or being successful, Willard said, he may not have taken the job at Canisius.
Willard outlined what Christian needs to do: Develop players. Sell the program to recruits.
“Any time you take over a program as long as a school like Canisius has been down, you take on something huge,” Willard said.
“He knows it’s a challenge. Everybody knows it’s a challenge. But it has potential to be a turnaround.”
Sendek doesn’t just see this as Christian’s undertaking. The community, Sendek said, must help.
“No coach can do it alone,” said Sendek, who will enter his ninth season at Santa Clara.
“If you want to get Canisius to a place where it can be, it’s going to take some heavy lifting from a lot of people. You just can’t hire a new coach, show him his office and abandon him. It doesn’t work that way. You need alignment, from the president to the trustees to the constituencies on campus, to the alumni, and everybody has to lock arms because the competition is fierce. If you’re not united on the home front, it’s almost an impossible task.”
Christian is once again ready to lead and elevate the people around him at Canisius.
“It’s all about people,” Christian said. “It’s all about attracting the right kind of basketball players. The right kind of students. The right kind of people to represent this university.
“There’s a lot of places in the country that turn around programs. This is not something novel or new. My job is to do just that. I’ve committed to do it. There’s no specific formula to turn the program around, except for every single day you’ve got to work as hard as you can, to do all of those things.”