Jim Kessler

Who is Jim Kessler?

Jim Kessler is the head men's basketball coach at Grace College in Indiana. He has over 500 career wins as the head coach of Lancer Basketball and has coached them for 35 seasons.

He is a Grace alumnus, playing on a 26-6 team in 1969-70, under Chet Kammerer, who is now the director of scouting with the NBA's Miami Heat.

Following his academic and athletic career at Grace, he coached high school basketball in Missouri before becoming an assistant at Grace. A couple of years after becoming an assistant, he took over the head job.

Kessler's best season was when he won the 1992 NAIA Division 2 Men's Basketball Championship. In 2007-2008, Kessler's Lancers advanced all the way to the Elite 8 at nationals, before falling to eventual champion Oregon Tech. Oregon Tech featured three players, all standing 6'7" tall, who had played with Kyle Singler at South Medford High School, in Medford, Oregon. Singler, plays for another Coach K in Coach Mike Krzyzewski, the current Olympic men's basketball coach for the United States, but perhaps more well known as the head men's basketball coach at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

The 2007-2008 Lancer squad had the opportunity to play at Valparaiso University. Valparaiso is coached by Homer Drew, who coached against Kessler when he coached at Bethel in the 1980s.