The Builder
Jasper native Chris Berry has spent a lifetime resurrecting basketball programs from the ruins. Now, he has taken over as head coach at Gardendale.
Words by Stephen W. B. Rizzo | Images by Al Blanton
An unexpected twist has appeared on Chris Berry’s coaching timeline. After an entire career of coaching boys the game of basketball, Chris came back to Gardendale High School last year to take the job as head girls’ basketball coach. He describes his first season as “tough,” and has found that the first order of business moving into year two is to find more able bodies.
“This past season [ended] with nine girls in our program at a 6A school, so we're just trying to find girls and families that want to get their girls involved in basketball.”
But then another unexpected twist occurred in late July, when Chris was named the head boys’ coach at Gardendale and his career took yet another pivot. Such is the life of a winner and a program-builder.
A 1996 graduate of Walker High School, Chris played basketball at UAB Walker College from 1996 to 1998 for coaches Glen Clem and Robert Epps before transferring to the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Even then, Chris knew he wanted to coach.
While at UAB, he had a fortuitous meeting with one of the assistant basketball coaches who was teaching a class in which Chris was enrolled. The two struck up a friendship and Chris eventually became a student manager for the UAB basketball team. The position not only helped cover school expenses, it also gave him a greater opportunity to explore his passion for the game and coaching. More important than the sideline experience, Chris also met his future wife, Holly, at UAB’s Bartow Arena.
Chris had spotted the beautiful blonde in one of the team’s posters, and eventually he was introduced to her by one of the school’s athletic trainers. Since Chris was busy traveling with the men’s team and Holly the women’s, initially it proved difficult for him to track her down for a date. His persistence paid off.
“January of 1999 we finally had our first date,” Chris remembers. “We were engaged by Christmas of 2000, and married in August of 2001. We clearly had a lot in common with basketball being at the forefront and our relationship grew quickly.”
After graduating from UAB in 2001, Chris’s first teaching position was at Maddox Middle School, where he also served as an assistant coach under Coach Thad Burgess at Walker High School. He then briefly taught at a school near Tampa, Florida, Holly’s hometown.
In 2004, Chris returned to Alabama and coached at Bragg Middle School in Gardendale, where he stayed for nine years and developed a very successful program in that community. Under his leadership, Bragg went to the Jefferson County Middle School Championship five of those years and won the championship in four out of five tries. It was here that Chris says he “got the itch that [he] wanted to be a head coach.” He got the chance in 2013 to do just that when his assistant principal, Darius McKay, took a principal’s position with Tarrant High School and Chris was named the head basketball coach at Tarrant.
As with most of the programs he took on, Tarrant was a rebuilding process. In the three years prior to his arrival, the team had won only three games. Though the program initially struggled to field a team, by Berry’s second year Tarrant advanced to the Regional Finals, something that the school had not done in almost 15 years.
Next, Patrick Gann, principal of Oakman High School, approached Berry about another rebuild. Oakman was coming off a season with only five wins when Chris took the head coaching position there in 2015. As with Tarrant, Chris helped the team turn around and make it to the Sub Regionals by his second year. The Wildcats averaged 83 to 85 points per game, and, with a number of players making All-State, Chris fostered individual success as well.
After three years at Oakman, life and family considerations led Chris back to Jefferson County. Now Chris and Holly are settled back in familiar territory with their three children: Layla, Bryce, and Myles.
When asked about his approach to rebuilding programs, Chris points out a number of things. First, he capitalizes on being “the new guy,” explaining that in a rebuilding situation, something clearly had not worked out previously. He wants to build off that excitement of being a new coach with new ideas.
Second, he plays what he describes as aggressive basketball. “[It] creates excitement because kids are able to put up some successful numbers,” Chris says. “We give kids something good to talk about, even when we lose the game. That is exciting for kids!”
Finally, he is quick to credit his administrators. He says that at every stop along the way, administrative support has been huge, and without it rebuilding a program is not possible.
After Chris was named the head boys’ coach at Gardendale on July 30, replacing Trent Hosmer, the school announced that Holly would take over the girls’ job in Chris’ stead. “This is an amazing opportunity for myself and our whole family,” Chris commented. “We have lived in Gardendale for the last 14 years and love this city and school deeply. The outpouring of support from the community has been overwhelming. We are thankful to the administration for putting their trust in us to carry on the great tradition of Gardendale basketball. We look forward to continuing to grow the game from the grassroots level now on the boys’ side as well as the girls.”
Being a successful coach is more than just winning games for Coach Berry. “It’s bigger than basketball. We want to give these kids a reason to get up and come to school every day,” he says.
To accomplish this, sometimes he takes his work home with him. Chris explains that he and Holly bring kids into their home, feed them, and host activities such as game night. Sometimes, he even becomes a father figure to those who don't have one present in the home.
To that end, Chris Berry is not just building basketball programs. He’s building lives. 78