Longtime coaching veteran Bart Bellairs joins the Transylvania men’s basketball coaching staff for the 2017-18 as an assistant coach.
As the newest assistant coach for the Pioneers men’s basketball program, Bellairs brings over three decades of coaching pedigree and experience in collegiate athletics to Transylvania.
“Bart is an exciting addition to our staff,” says head coach Brian Lane of Bellairs’s addition. “Having another experienced set of eyes at practice and games gives us a big boost.”
While Bellairs’s coaching profile contains a plethora of accomplishments to observe, his most notable tenure occurred as a head coach at NCAA Division I Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia, where he coached from 1993 through 2005.
VMI experienced its richest era while Bellairs led the men’s basketball program; Bellairs earned the Southern Conference Coach of the Year honors in 1994, Sports Illustrated’s Unknown Coach of the Year award in 1996, and recruited and coached future NBA player Reggie Williams among other achievements.
A storied and rugged rise through the assistant coaching ranks at various institutions preceded Bellairs’s arrival to VMI, including a two-year stint at the University of Maryland under coaching legend Lefty Driesell, and later at James Madison University where he again joined forces with Driesell to guide the Dukes to the NCAA Tournament in 1994.
Bellairs’s leadership and administrative experience is equally as extensive against his coaching credentials; Bellairs has served as the athletic director at two Division I institutions, beginning with Savannah State University from 2008 through 2010, and Southeastern Louisiana University from 2010 until 2013. Each of Bellairs’s stops have displayed similar patterns of increased visibility for those respective athletic departments, strengthening of corporate partnerships, and creating tighter connections between each athletic program and its community.
Additionally, Bellairs has honed his craft in the media realm, serving as a college basketball analyst for ESPN, Comcast, and FOX Sports South. Bellairs spurred the creation of coaches’ and weekly all-sports shows at VMI and Southeastern Louisiana.
The Richmond, Kentucky native graduated from Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina in 1979 with a Bachelor’s in Sociology/Social Work and later obtained a master’s degree from Western Illinois University in Physical Education and Athletics Administration.
