Chad Wilson is the new leader of the Georgia State University Men’s Golf team. Wilson is not only new to Georgia State, but he is also new to being a head coach as well. Wilson served as the interim head coach at Coastal Carolina University for one year before being hired at Georgia State over the summer.
Wilson has been around the game since he was 4 years old, and has always had a love for the game.
Wilson played his college golf at Kennesaw State University, and was very successful there as a player. Wilson was a part of some very successful teams during his time at Kennesaw State. In 2011, Kennesaw State advanced to its first NCAA Regional and its first NCAA Championship.
Wilson’s best moment of his career came in the 2011 season when his team had a chance to advance to the NCAA championship, and they were in the top-6 but fought their way into the top-3.
“We were fortunate enough to go from 6th to 3rd in those 18 holes and qualified for the national championship, and we were the first ones of any sport at Kennesaw to do that,” Wilson said. “To do that in your senior year was really special.”
The 2011 season was Wilson’s senior season, so he was out of eligibility, and he didn’t know what he wanted to do. Wilson graduated from Kennesaw State with a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education, but he knew that he didn’t want to be a teacher. He was given the opportunity to be a graduate assistant at Lee University. After that, an opportunity opened up at his alma mater, and he jumped at it.
In Wilson’s two years at Kennesaw State, he helped lead the golf team to another NCAA championship, and in the next year, lead the No. 24 ranked Owls to the NCAA Regional, where they missed the final by one shot.
After his two years at Kennesaw State, Wilson moved on to Coastal Carolina where he spent two years there as well. In his first year, he was an assistant, and in his second year, he was the interim head coach.
Although Wilson served as an interim head coach at Coastal Carolina, he still feels like a first-time head coach.
“I’ve only known the team for such a small amount of time, and I’m doing my best to learn about each individual and kind of gain their trust,” Wilson said. “It’s been a little eye-opening to see how Georgia State does things, because they’ve done things a little differently from the other programs that I’ve been at, but their way of going about it works.”
Wilson feels his success as a player at Kennesaw State has helped him as a coach. He credits most of that to his coach, Jay Moseley.
“He’s a great leader,” Wilson said. “And to see him serve his players in the fashion that he is probably…contributes the most [as to] why I fell in love with coaching.”
Wilson hopes to take his experiences as a coach and combine it with what the school has to offer, in hopes that they can win a national championship.
