With approval from the Greene County School Board at its July 20 meeting, Chris Nelson will become the next head boys’ basketball coach of the Rams. The 2002 Jefferson-Scranton High School grad was a sharp shooting guard under the direction of then head coach Mike McGinnis. Nelson played basketball and graduated from Central College in Pella, and has been a teacher-coach at Glidden-Ralston since entering the work force.

J-S was in the Raccoon River Activities Conference when Nelson was a player here, so he’s not very familiar with the Heart of Iowa Activities Conference, where the Greene County teams now play, but he’s already learning. “I’ve already broken down game film on some of the teams and looked at stats. It looks like there definitely are some good teams. Obviously, Gilbert over the last couple years has built some good tradition over there. It sounds like South Hamilton should have a very good team with maybe five guys coming back that are all going to be very productive. I know Nevada’s got some size, and other teams will be pretty solid. I think we can be very competitive because we have some guys that can really play, and I think we’ll have a lot of different options.”

Greene County went 10-11 last season and won eight of its final 11 games under then head coach Jeremy Hinote.