He's intense. He's competitive.

That much seems obvious about new USF men's basketball head coach Chris Mack. You can surmise that from studying Mack's approach and sideline demeanor at his previous stops — Xavier, Louisville and the College of Charleston — where his consistent 20-plus-victory teams once earned the nation's No. 1 ranking and a No. 1 seed for the NCAA Tournament.

It's a given that we'll witness similar coaching fire when Mack begins his Yuengling Center theatre of operations.

But to learn the perfect story of Mack's makeup, let's venture far from the hardcourt. Let's rewind nearly two decades ago. It's two nights before Christmas, a chilly evening in Louisville, Ky. Amid some holiday cheer with family, Mack decided to go bowling with his wife, Christi.

At the Executive Strike and Spare Family Fun Center, near the Louisville fairgrounds, Christi won the first game. 

And the second.

And the third.

"In the beginning, she's rolling a 175, a 190 … and I just couldn't believe that I could not beat her in something,'' Mack said. "Her mother worked (at that bowling center) for years and Christi bowled a lot growing up. I was not a great bowler, but losing at anything drives me nuts. 

"If I played a game of one-on-one basketball with my buddy and he beat me, which didn't happen often as I was growing up, I'd check it up and want to play again immediately. It was the same thing with my wife in bowling.''

Christi knew the deal.

"He wasn't leaving until he beat me,'' she said. "And I certainly wasn't going to let him win. So, we played on.''

And on.

And on.

And on.

She won 17 straight games. Mack finally captured the 18th game. It was nearly 3 a.m.

"My arm about fell off,'' she said. "I beat him 17 straight. That's pretty good, right? Well, Chris has this annoying, overwhelming confidence. He walked out of there not defeated, like, 'Yeah, she won 17, but I won the last one.' It's quite a mindset.''

"I had blisters all over me and I couldn't move my arm for three or four days,'' Mack said with a laugh. "But I had to win.''

He just had to.

"One thing we discovered pretty quickly as we searched for our new men's basketball coach: Chris Mack is a winner,'' USF CEO of Athletics Rob Higgins said.

Obviously. 

But so is his wife.

 

A Basketball Couple

When Kristy Curry was recently introduced as the new USF women's basketball coach, Christi Mack said hello off to the side.

"Hey, I dropped (23 points) on you one time at Dayton,'' Christi Mack said.

Curry did a double take.

"Oh, my goodness, you're Christi Hester,'' said Curry, who instantly recalled the night of Nov. 19, 1999, her first game as a Purdue head coach, when Katie Douglas hit a running hook shot at the buzzer, securing a 60-58 victory for the Boilermakers, the defending national champion.

Curry also remembered something else. 

"Christi Hester could play!''

Could she ever. 

Christi Hester, a 5-foot-9 guard from Louisville, had 1,268 career points from 1996-2000 (it could've been much higher, but she missed most of her junior season with a serious leg injury). In 2014, she was inducted into the University of Dayton Hall of Fame.

She brought more than numbers.

"She remains close to No. 1 all-time when it comes to players who were beloved and embraced by their fellow students and especially the fans,'' wrote Dayton Daily News columnist Tom Archdeacon. "With a slashing style of play, an effervescent mix of charisma and sass and an eccentric fashion sense on the court — she was nicknamed 'Socks' because of her ever-present knee-high stockings — she became the Pied Piper of UD basketball.''

She got into coaching and casually met Mack at a practice, where he watched a women's player he had coached. That was during his start-up basketball job (junior varsity girls) while he worked as a hydraulic-oil salesman in Cincinnati. They remained acquaintances — nothing more. Four years later, at that same player's graduation party, Mack asked Christi Hester for a date.

Three months later, Mack proposed.

"When you know, you know,'' Mack's wife said.

They quickly agreed that she would stop coaching and take care of the home-front, but their family would eventually be along for the ride.

She understands her husband's life — perfectly. There are dinnertime cell-phone calls that you simply must take. There are endless frustrations and priceless rewards. She will give her opinion — if needed — and it's an informed opinion.

"He'll ask me every once in a while,'' she said. "I mean, I do have a knowledge of whether somebody ran the play wrong, whether they flare-screened instead of back-screened. I'll come to a few practices and watch. I think I do love basketball as much as Chris.

"The players become like our kids. It can be frustrating with the transfer portal, with kids coming in and out, but it's always important to know the kids and their backgrounds.''

For that reason, she's fine with date night becoming a scouting trip to a high-school game.

"Christi has a great perspective on the hours you've got to put in as a coach,'' Mack said. "She knows it's a different profession. It's never, 'You should have run this play or that play.' She can watch and she just has a good feel for what the players are going through. Not only is she a great supporter of me, but she tries to be a mom away from home for these guys. So, I'm very blessed in that sense.''

 

Seeking A Balanced Life

Chris and Christi Mack are the parents of three sports-minded children — volleyball players Lainee (20 at the College of Charleston) and Hailee (19 at Vanderbilt University), along with 11-year-old Brayden, a gym rat who got up nearly 3,000 shots on one of his first days in Tampa.

In 2022, Mack left Louisville's program and took two years off.

He became a volleyball dad. He was present for his son's life (including the parent-teacher conferences he used to miss). It was also a reprieve from the rapidly changing landscape of college basketball — NIL, the transfer portal and the like — that allowed him to breathe, observe and come back fully charged at the College of Charleston in 2024. 

It also provided precious time for Mack with his father, who was battling cancer and died nearly four years ago.

"It's all about balance and I think Chris has always been able to find that balance,'' Mack's wife said. "He can be dad when he needs to be dad. I think we communicate well and play off each other well.

"We are definitely a sports-minded family, though, and we all love it. There's always a game on or a tape of a game on. That's just how we live.''

Mack paid tribute to his family's dedication during his former USF introduction, pausing to hold back his emotions and describing Christi as "my sunshine … who has been with me through the highest of highs and lowest of lows.''

Mack said he tried to incorporate his daughters as much as possible through the basketball activities and the many family moves. The daughters have lived in nine different houses. Brayden will begin his fourth different grade school. 

The family intends to put down deep roots in Tampa.

"The experts talk about when you get older, if you were a kid who moved around a lot, it really allows you to be comfortable in different settings,'' Mack said. "That's great when you're older, but it's really tough as a parent to pull your son or daughter out of a grade school and have them make new friends. And they don't understand why.

"Brayden has been very adaptable. But we need to make sure, as he's heading into his formative years, that he has some friendships that can last a long time. I still go on (an annual) lake trip with guys I went to grade school with. Brayden's not going to be able to do that if he doesn't build those kind of long-term friendships. I think it's time for him to develop those close friendships and feel like he knows where home is.''

Mack had an idyllic upbringing in Cincinnati, where he was a devoted follower of the Bengals (quarterback Boomer Esiason was his guy) and Reds (ditto, Pete Rose). Meanwhile, he idolized Larry Bird in basketball. When he got to meet Bird in later years, he was tongue-tied.

He was Cincinnati's Player of the Year at St. Xavier High School, then played at Evansville and Xavier, where he battled constant injuries. Coaching became his way to stay involved in basketball. But as Mack has matured, he's conscious of picking his spots, stepping away at strategic times, making sure he's not ignoring what's really important.

Family, more than anything, will define Mack's time away from the court. He loves the outdoors and expects a few beach excursions. He wants to be considered a "normal guy,'' approachable by the fans, open to promoting and developing his new program at USF. The Mack family will be a part of that. 

Family time will also involve competition. How could it not? It's a family of athletes, all wanting to win. The Monopoly board game, in particular, has become a contact sport.

"As intense as Chris can be, I believe he knows how to control the things he can control,'' Mack's wife said. "He transfers that to his players. He actually brings a calming influence, whether you're up 10 or down 10. I've always thought he was extremely gifted with X's and O's, drawing up plays, using his timeouts, those type of things. He puts his team in a position to win.

"Of course, he has his standards. Look, I've seen him kick guys out of practice. I've seen him kick his entire team out of practice. He has an intensity about him, an incredible desire to win.''

She sees it in basketball.

She sees it in board games.

Long ago, she saw it in bowling.

"I think what we're doing here is building great relationships, pushing our players to a high standard, loving them and building something we can all be proud of,'' Mack said. "Winning is a big part of it. Winning is what we want to do.

"It burned inside of me as a player, and it still burns inside of me as a coach. I can promise you that we'll always be looking for the answers to make sure we're successful. We'll learn from what just happened and be better the next time because of it. We're going to put the work in and we're going to win.''

He just has to win. It's all he knows.

–#GoBulls–