Christian's Crusade: Return to Mid-American and Win With Ohio University

April 3rd, 2012 - 21:25

Jim Christian, a perennial 20-game winner when he coached at Kent State, is returning to the Mid-American Conference in a similar capacity at Ohio University. After the retirement of Charlie Coles at Miami (Ohio), Christian departed TCU to join Akron's Keith Dambrot (ex-Central Michigan mentor) as second-time around coaches in the MAC. Nationally, they are among the following alphabetical list of active coaches who were bench bosses of two different schools in the same conference:

Active Coach Conference First School Second School
Frankie Allen Mid-Eastern Athletic Howard (2001-05) Maryland-Eastern Shore (since 2009)
Horace Broadnax Mid-Eastern Athletic Bethune-Cookman (1998-2002) Savannah State (since 2006)
Jim Christian Mid-American Kent State (2003-08) Ohio University (since 2013)
Keith Dambrot Mid-American Central Michigan (1992 & '93) Akron (since 2005)
Billy Gillispie Big 12 Texas A&M (2005-07) Texas Tech (since 2012)
Bill Herrion North Atlantic/America East Drexel (1992-99) New Hampshire (since 2007)
Barry Hinson Missouri Valley Missouri State (2000-08) Southern Illinois (since 2013)
Donnie Jones C-USA Marshall (2008-10) UCF (2011)
Greg McDermott Missouri Valley Northern Iowa (2002-06) Creighton (since 2011)
Jim Molinari Mid-Continent/Summit Northern Illinois (1991) Western Illinois (since 2009)
Mike Montgomery Pacific-10/12 Stanford (1987-2004) California (since 2009)
Stew Morrill Western Athletic Colorado State (1992-98) Utah State (since 2006)
Kevin Nickelberry Mid-Eastern Athletic Hampton (2007-10) Howard (since 2011)
Kevin O'Neill Pacific-10/12 Arizona (2008) Southern California (since 2010)
Rick Pitino Big East Providence (1986 & '87) Louisville (since 2006)
Keith Richard Sun Belt Louisiana Tech (1999-2001) Louisiana-Monroe (since 2011)