The Lions men’s basketball team added a new coach to the staff in preparation for the upcoming 2011-2012 seasons.

Former Lions basketball player, Andrew Chesney, has returned to UNA to help coach in the upcoming basketball season. He has been given the position of graduate assistant coach. Chesney plans to help head coach Bobby Champagne and assistant coach Kyle Morris lead the team to win the Gulf South Conference and national tournament.

Chesney has trained as a post-player and coached last year at Maryville University in St. Louis, Mo., a Division II school.

He helped move the team from a 3-23 to a 7-19 season. He also helped lead the team to the Great Lakes Valley Conference.

Although Chesney has only been coaching for two years, he has been helping out with different basketball camps for the past four summers.

The coaches are training the team with conditioning sessions and rigorous workouts, which consist of running three times a week and lifting four. They also have an hour of team practice twice a week until Oct. 15.

Chesney explained that the players don’t need him to get excited for the games. “They should already be pumped up,” Chesney said. “We’re here to guide them, to help them succeed.”

Chesney attended UNA for two years before graduating in 2009 with his bachelor’s in psychology. During those two years, he played on the basketball team and was the third leading scorer his senior year, averaging 13 points per game.

Before coming to UNA, Chesney played for Palm Beach Community College in Florida during his freshman year and spent his sophomore year playing for Wallace State in Hanceville. He has been a part of a 27-9 team that went to the Elite Eight in Springfield, Mass.

Chesney started playing basketball at a young age and continued throughout his high school career in Birmingham. He didn’t make the team his 7th and 8th grade seasons. Instead of looking at it in a negative way, Chesney pushed himself to work harder in order to make the team his 9th grade season.

Throughout his college career, Chesney assembled a 93-35 record.

Chesney said his hobbies center around basketball.

“Basketball is 99 percent of my life,” he said.

He also enjoys playing golf, shooting his rifle and cooking.

Chesney said he wants to continue coaching and working on his master’s degree in Health and Human Performance