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COACH AS MENTOR

Women’s Basketball Head Coach Chad Meadors exemplifies the special role of “coach” at Bushnell, with undeniable success both on and off the court. While only half-way through his fifth season, he is the all-time winningest coach in program history. He led his team to their first two Cascade Collegiate Conference Championships (2020 and 2021), and a trip to the NAIA National Championship in 2020. Even more notable, in 2021 his team was voted the “CCC Les Schwab Team of Character” and he was selected as the “CCC Les Schwab Coach of Character.”

Prior to arriving at Bushnell, Meadors was the head women’s basketball coach at Lower Columbia College, a community college in Longview, Washington. In addition to coaching, he served as the Director of Advising and Testing, providing him the opportunity to engage with students in their academic endeavors. Over the course of his collegiate coaching career, however, Meadors discovered that his focus began to shift from coaching the game to coaching the people.

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“This is my calling. To play an integral part of my athletes’ lives and to be a part of their journey. They arrive on campus as young women, but they don’t yet have the experience, knowledge, and maturity they will need after graduation. I want to instill in them the strength and courage they need to stand up for themselves in our world today. It’s not easy – we need faith and support and many people in our corners to thrive. I get to be a small part of that.”

As a country boy who grew up on a cattle ranch in St. Paul, Oregon, Meadors values old-fashioned hard work and asks a lot of his players. He expects them to be coachable, to be problem-solvers, and to be great teammates. His players know to be on time, to serve and respect one another, to lead by example, and to maintain a positive ‘can-do’ attitude. “I seek to instill a culture of grace on our team. Nobody has walked in anyone else’s shoes.” Meadors wants to model the kind of values that students will carry with them into the world as they lead and live in relationship with others. “I’m not easy – I give my players what they need, not what they want. At the same time, when they need support, we are there and ready to go through hard things with them.”

Meadors has reinforced these values through creating opportunities for his team to serve the community together. They have participated in food and clothing drives, joined holiday gift programs for local families, built sheds for people experiencing homelessness, and even picked up trash around the campus and neighborhood. He believes the integration of wisdom, faith, and service into the entire student experience is what makes Bushnell so unique. “Bushnell is an amazing community that gives students a safe place to develop as individuals, while at the same time they are encouraged to go out into the surrounding community and discover their unique roles in the world.”

When one of his athletes graduates, his hope is that he has helped prepare her to face the challenges in the world head-on, with faith and grit and grace. After all, his impact off the court is the one that he hopes lasts forever.

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