CHARLESTON, S.C. – This summer The Citadel Athletic Department is highlighting a number of our coaches in a series titled Coach's Corner. The videos will post each Wednesday morning throughout the summer and are intended to help Bulldog fans and supporters get to know our coaches away from competition. Each Coach's Corner episode features the coach reflecting on his or her background, goals and experiences, in addition to their attraction to The Citadel and coaching our cadet-athletes. Links to previous Coach's Corner posts can be found at the bottom of this article. This week we feature Chuck Kriese. 
 
Rapid Fire
Last movie you saw in a theater: Hacksaw Ridge
Favorite professional team: Indianapolis Colts
Last book you read: The Last Lion 
Favorite meal: Salmon and sweet potatoes
Favorite musician: Ella Fitzgerald
 

 
1. Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana. I'm a Hoosier.
 
2. How many siblings do you have?
I have five brothers and sisters.
 
3. How did you first get interested in your sport, was there a certain person who influenced you?
How did I get interested in tennis? Gosh, my basketball coach told me to go down and play tennis in the summer. It would help my defense and my footwork. And all the kids hung out at the tennis courts. I never had a lesson.
 
4. What sports did you play growing up?
Everything. Football, basketball, baseball, track and field. Tennis was a by-product. It was all that was leftover after I was done with the others.
 
5. How did you get into coaching? Was it something you always wanted to do?
I got into coaching because coaches were the people I respected most throughout my whole life. I always wanted to coach ever since I was a child. Those were the people that we respected . And so getting into coaching, I always wanted to coach basketball growing up in Indiana. I was led in a different direction into tennis and I had a summer job in 1972 working for Harry Opman who was the leading coach in the world. It so influenced me because he was such a man of character that I devoted my time to tennis coaching after that.
 
6. Who was your favorite athlete as a kid?
My favorite athlete as a child, definitely anybody who played basketball for Purdue. Terry Dischinger, Mel Garland, Rick Mount.
 
7. What would you consider your greatest athletic achievement?
My greatest athletic achievement I was runner-up in the city of Indianapolis for high school athlete of the year behind Jordan McGinnis. I got 10 varsity letters in high school, I was first team all sectional in 1968 as a basketball player. So that would probably have to be it. Then my high school cross country team winning the Indianapolis city championship. Those were good memories
 
8. What is the best sporting event you've ever attended?
Getting to go to the Purdue and Notre Dame football game with my father. Just me and him, a long trip from Indianapolis up to South bend, 1950.
 
9. Tell us about your most memorable vacation:
My most memorable vacation were those with my family when I was a child we used to go to a place in northern Indiana called Lake Shafer. My mom and dad went up there one time with only ten dollars and we made it through the week. Because we hung out, popped a lot of popcorn and played bunco at night. No one knows what bunco is but if you lived up in Indiana you knew what bunco was.
 
10. What is your favorite hobby outside of athletics?
Fly fishing in the mountains is my favorite hobby of all. Just time in the mountains.
 
11. What is something on your bucket list that you haven't been able to check off yet?
My bucket list would be two things. I'd still love to learn to play the piano. I quit at age eight because I was getting beat up on the playground, so I had to go into sports. And so I dumped piano and that was a big regret of mine. The other is I've got a lot more writing to do.
 
12. What attracted you to The Citadel?
What attracted me to The Citadel is there's no place like it in the world and I was done with coaching except I said if I ever get a place to coach again like The Citadel I would get back into it. And it opened and so I was able to come to The Citadel because here at The Citadel we have a chance, we have a great chance, if we can get our programs and tennis program to a place of excellence it will never fall. Because the people who work here and the whole culture here does not mess around with mediocrity. There's a pursuit of excellence from the inside out.
 
13. Tell us about your most memorable experience so far at The Citadel:
The most memorable experience I had a couple of days past, I saw a couple of my seniors who were in the first class that I coached, finishing up. They had tears in their eyes and so did I. It was pretty darn good.
 
14. What has been your favorite part about working at The Citadel?
My favorite part about working at The Citadel is the fact that excellence is pursued, it is not compromised. Here you are all in, the kids understand about being all in. They are pursuing their dreams, they're going after something special and you do not go forward here, you do not have a rite of passage without time or without merit. And that's a rarity in today's educational systems.
 
15. What's the best part about coaching?
The best part about coaching is absolutely the relationships with other people and your ability to help young people find out who they are and grow into that unique individual that God meant for them to be. And that is the mission. The greatest thing about coaching is the teaching; it's the teaching without a doubt. Everything else just blows away, everything else is fool's gold in the end. It's the relationships and how you see people grow into adulthood as strong men and women.
 
Coach's Corner Schedule
May 31 - Jody Huddleston
June 7 - Sandra Worman
June 14 - Chuck Kriese
June 21- Jack Marchant
June 28 - Lori Bonacci
July 5 - William Smith 
July 12 - Craig Mosqueda 
July 19 - Erin Leonard 
July 26 - Rob Hjerling 
Aug. 2 - Kris Kut 
Aug. 9 - Ciaran Traquair 
Aug. 16 - Stevi Robinson 
 
For more information on The Citadel tennis, follow @CitadelOlympic or visit CitadelSports.com.