Chris Conger
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- Title:
- Head Coach
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- Phone:
- 847-735-5292
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- Email:
- conger@lakeforest.edu
After 17 seasons (1996-present), Chris Conger is easily the winningest head coach in the history of the Forester men’s basketball program. He has been recognized as one of the best in his profession, having four times earned Midwest Conference Coach of the Year honors (1998, 2000, 2007, and 2012). He was also chosen as the 1999-2000 National Association of Basketball Coaches Midwest Region Division III Coach of the Year.
Lake Forest ranked second in the MWC in scoring defense in 2012-13 after leading the league in that category the previous season. Under Conger’s direction, the Foresters have finished among the top three teams in the conference in scoring defense each of the last 10 years.
Conference coaches selected Lake Forest senior guard Jeff Beck as a First Team All-MWC honoree following the 2012-13 season. Conger’s players have now earned 33 All-MWC distinctions, 35 Academic All-MWC honors, two MWC Player of the Year awards, a pair of All-American accolades (Mike Ansani in 1997-98 and Travis Clark in 2011-12), and an NCAA Division III national three-point percentage title (Bryan Bertola in 2000-01).
Conger’s 2011-12 squad captured the program’s third conference championship and posted the best record (20-4) in team history. He also directed the 1999-2000 Foresters to the program’s first-ever outright conference championship with a perfect 16-0 league record. Lake Forest followed up that performance with another stellar season in 2000-01, highlighted by eight weeks among the nation’s top 20 ranked teams. During this two-year run the team won a program-best 32 games, a feat matched only by the Foresters from 2010-12. Lake Forest has reached the four-team MWC Tournament eight times in the last 16 years and advanced to the event’s final for the first time in team history in 2007.
Conger’s coaching career began at Lake Forest after he graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1995. He spent one season as an assistant coach at Lake Forest before becoming the youngest head coach in the NCAA in 1996. His first team, which finished the season sixth in the nation for three-point shooting accuracy, achieved its highest league finish since 1991-92 and its best conference mark since 1983-84. The Foresters broke through in 1997-98 with the school’s first-ever appearance in the four-team MWC Championship Tournament.
Achieving previously unheard-of success is nothing new to Conger. During his playing career at the University of Wisconsin, the Badgers broke the school record for the best three-year mark in school history, which included the school’s first back-to-back post-season tournament berths (1993 and 1994). The latter squad became the first Badger team since 1947 to earn a trip to the NCAA Tournament.
Conger, a Green Bay, Wisconsin, native and graduate of Southwest High School in Green Bay, began his collegiate playing career as a walk-on at the University of Wisconsin before being elevated to a scholarship player. During his Badger career, Conger played under two head coaches who have since moved to to the NBA - Stu Jackson, Senior Vice President of Basketball Operations, and Stan Van Gundy, former Orlando Magic and Miami Heat Head Coach. Conger was a two-time Academic All-Big Ten selection and a three-time High Honor Dean’s List member while earning his B.S. degree in Engineering Mechanics.
During the summer Conger directs multiple sessions of the Lake Forest Boys Basketball Camp.
He lives in Gurnee with his wife Julie and daughters Hailey and Hannah.
