Chase Coleman joins UVA coaching staff as grad assistant
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (CBS19 SPORTS) -- Chase Coleman said in a high school his goal was to become a basketball coach and the journey will begin as a graduate assistant on the Virginia men's basketball coaching staff.
Mike Barber from the Richmond Times-Dispatch was the first to report the news on Friday. Coleman spent the last four years as a guard for the Cavaliers, starting his career as a walk-on.
Coleman will join another former Wahoo turned grad assistant in Isaiah Wilkins, who has been on staff with Virginia for the last two seasons after a three-year professional career.
The son of a longtime coach, Coleman told CBS19 in December he had wanted to follow the same path since his sophomore year of high school. At the time Coleman was weighing whether his coaching journey would start at UVA, at another program or if he would play an extra year of college basketball.
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"I feel like I'm learning from the best in the business that understands and has done it for so long, that's won in so many places, I think that'll just carry on how to win," Coleman told CBS19 during the season, "It's one things to compete, it's one thing to win, but to win and build that foundation of 'okay, this is the culture that I want to bring in, this is what it's going to take', I think I've learned that."
Coleman closed his playing career with Virginia by hitting a three-pointer against Louisville on senior day as the Cavaliers celebrated an ACC regular season championship afterwards. Bennett spoke highly of Coleman's future on the sidelines whenever asked about the former walk-on guard.
"I value his opinion, I'll sometimes ask him during a timeout, 'hey what do you see?" and I'll hear him saying things," Bennett said in December after a game, "He talks to coaches, he's good, he's going to be a heck of a coach."