After 15 seasons (1996-present), Lake Forest's 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 three times earned Midwest Conference Coach of the Year honors (1998, 2000, and 2007). He was also chosen as the 1999-00 National Association of Basketball Coaches Midwest Region Division III Coach of the Year.
Conger's 2010-11 squad finished the season with a 12-11 overall record and a 10-8 mark in the MWC. The team tied for fifth place in the league standings and ranked among the top 50 in the nation in scoring defense and three-point shooting.
Junior Travis Clark was named First Team All-Midwest Conference for the second straight season, giving the program at least one post player listed among the league's best for 16 consecutive years. Clark ranked among the top 10 players in the conference in points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocked shots and finished fifth in the nation in field goal percentage. Conger's players have now earned 29 All-MWC distinctions, 26 Academic All-MWC distinctions, one MWC Player of the Year and All-American award (Mike Ansani in 1997-98), and an NCAA Division III national three-point percentage title (Bryan Bertola in 2000-01).
Conger and the Foresters captured the program's first-ever outright conference championship in 1999-2000 with a perfect 16-0 league record. The Foresters followed up that performance with another stellar season in 2000-2001, highlighted by eight weeks among the nation's top 20 ranked teams. During this two-year run the Foresters won a program-best 32 games and were the only squad in the MWC to qualify for the four-team conference tournament both seasons. Lake Forest has reached the tourney seven times in the last 14 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, Orlando Magic 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.
