CSC graduate given major award

The 44-year-old Carlisle, who is in his sixth year as the head strength and conditioning coach at the University of Southern California, received the award at a banquet in Indianapolis on Friday night.

Carlisle played in the offensive line at Chadron State three years in the early 1980s and graduated from CSC in 1985. His father, Dallas Carlisle, was the division superintendent of the Chicago and North Western Railroad in Chadron at the time. The family had lived in Mason City, Iowa, before moving to Chadron. The elder Carlisles now live in Arizona.

Chris began his career as the head football coach at Dodge High School in eastern Nebraska in 1985. He then spent six seasons as the offensive line coach and strength coach at Blytheville, Ark., High, where former CSC Football Coach Jerry Welch was the head football mentor.

After Welch moved to Arkansas as an academic adviser to athletes, Carlisle went there to earn his master’s degree and continued to work in strength and conditioning. Beginning in 1993, he spent four years as the head football coach at Subiaco Academy in Arkansas. In 1997, he was the offensive line coach and strength coach at Trinity Valley Community College in Athens, Texas, when the football team won the national junior college championship.

Carlisle spent the next three years as associate head strength and conditioning coach at the University of Tennessee. The Volunteers won the national championship in football his first year there.

When Pete Carroll became the head football coach at Southern Cal in early 2001, he hired Carlisle to become the Trojans’ head strength and conditioning coach. Just a few months before that, Carlisle had been diagnosed as having Hodgkin’s Disease. No one at USC except Carroll knew about the illness until it went into remission in the summer of 2001 and Carlisle told the athletes and his coaching colleagues.

Although he spends much of his time working with the football team at USC, Carlisle’s official title is director of physical development and he supervises the weight training and conditioning for all 19 of the Trojans’ athletic teams.

Twice, Carlisle has been nominated for the Most Courageous Award given by the Football Writers Association of America.

Chris and his wife Louon have a son, Alex, 6.