Conrad Weiser tabs athletic director Chris Kline as next girls basketball coach
2024 Berks basketball coverage presented by
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By Sean McBryan — MikeDragoSports.com correspondent
Conrad Weiser girls basketball has found its new head coach in Chris Kline, who is in his third year as athletic director.
Kline was approved Wednesday by the Conrad Weiser school board.
The 50-year-old Kline takes over for Mark Owens, who resigned after the Scouts finished 2-9 in Berks II and 6-16 overall this season. Owens accumulated 105 wins in 11 seasons, one of three Weiser girls basketball coaches to win over 100 games.
“I’m hopeful for what we can accomplish here,” Kline said. “We have a good nucleus of players coming back. Mark did a fantastic job for us the 11 years he was here. I’m hoping to pick up where he left off and continue growing the program.”
Conrad Weiser had one of its most successful seasons in Owens’ second season, going 23-9 with a District 3 runner-up finish and a trip to the PIAA semifinals.
That success might not come in Kline’s first season but the Scouts return five of their top six scorers and have an opportunity to compete for a Berks League Division II title with defending champion Exeter losing its all-time leading scorer in Grace Reedy.
“Every team goes into the season with the goal of making the playoffs,” Kline said of the team he is inheriting, which he expects to go seven or eight deep. “I think we have a legitimate chance to battle for that spot. When it comes down to the automatic berth, you have to win the division in Berks II because it’s tough to win the crossover game with Berks I.”
Kline graduated from Muhlenberg, Reading Area Community College, and Penn State-Berks, where he served as a women’s basketball assistant coach from 2009-2015.
He has previous high school girls basketball coaching experience as an assistant on Mike Mitchell Sr.’s staff at Wyomissing from 1996-2005, as head coach at Oley Valley in the 2005-06 season, and as an assistant at Fleetwood from 2006-08 before becoming the Tigers’ head coach for one season.
He took a few years away from coaching due to family obligations but stayed involved in athletics as an official and as commissioner of the Berks County Youth Basketball League.
Kline returned to the sideline for two seasons as Oley Valley’s head coach from 2019-21 before taking AD position at Conrad Weiser.
Tapping into the youth leagues to find potential players is something Kline wants to implement more into the Conrad Weiser program with his experience at that level with the BCYBL.
The plan is to put together a deep team, make his offensive and defensive playbook fit the strength of the players, and lead Weiser to its first winning season since 2015-16.
“I’d like to make a better connection to the youth programs, start building from the bottom up to try and make this a program that can be competitive annually rather than having pockets of success here and there,” he said. “We’re going to be motivated to get at it and I’m excited to be back on the sideline.”
