The unique path Matt Zosel took after graduating from Southern Oregon University will led him back to his alma mater as the head coach of the Raider men's basketball team in May 2022.
Zosel – after being named the Northwest Athletic Conference's South Region Coach of the Year for the second straight season at Lane Community College – became the 15th head coach in the program's 96-year history, and the first new one since 1996, succeeding his former coach Brian McDermott.
Zosel, 44, graduated cum laude with a history degree from SOU in 2002 and was a three-time NAIA Academic All-American for the Raider basketball and football teams. Twenty years later, he still stands as the school record-holder for single-season and career field-goal percentage.
His coaching career didn't begin in earnest until 2013. After leaving Ashland, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and completed a 75-week Arabic program before joining the Army's Airborne School. He served for more than seven years as a platoon sergeant on the 75th Ranger Regiment, the Army's premier light infantry force, while earning two Bronze Stars among other commendations. He was also twice selected among the Army's top-100 soldiers to compete in the Best Ranger Competition.
Following a year-long stint as a diplomatic special security agent at the U.S. Department of State – serving on the Secretary of State's protective detail to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and Syria; being picked for the U.S. Marshals task force; and conducting high-level criminal investigations – he found his calling as a coach.
Zosel got his start in Illinois as an associate head coach at MacMurray College (2013-14) and Millikin University (2014-15). He landed a graduate assistant position at University of Oregon under Dana Altman by 2015. With the Ducks, he helped develop three current NBA players (Chris Boucher, Dillon Brooks and Tyler Dorsey), and in his second season they advanced to the NCAA Final Four for the first time since 1939.
His next stop was Phoenix, Ariz., where for one year he directed the Jamal Murray Elite AAU program. He then returned to Eugene as an assistant at Lane before taking his first head coaching gig with the Titans in 2019. They went 51-21 over three seasons under Zosel, and celebrated an NWAC South championship with a 24-4 record in 2021-22.