'This is home': Western Illinois hires new men's basketball coach
Western Illinois men's basketball program has a new head coach.
Chad Boudreau was promoted to the role Thursday after three years as associate head coach, the Macomb school announced.
Boudreau replaces Ron Jeter, who this week left the Summit League program to become head coach at Southern Utah of the Western Athletic Conference.
From the archive: Western Illinois hires Rob Jeter as men's basketball coach
Western athletics director Paul Bubb called Boudreau's promotion a "rather easy decision," pointing to the coach's three years at Western. "The volume of interest, from calls to emails and text messages, was refreshing," Bubb said in a release, "and confirmed to me that the program is definitely in better shape than during other recent searches."
In the last three years under Jeter and Boudreau, Western went 39-45 including back-to-back seasons of .500 or better for the first time in a decade.
"I've grown to love the city and the people," Boudreau said. "I grew up not far from here, this is home for me, I want to be here and I'm very proud to be here."
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Before coming to Western Illinois, Boudreau was head coach at Highland College in Freeport, Illinois, and had worked with Jeter when he was head coach at Milwaukee from 2005-2016.
Before Milwaukee, Boudreau was the lead assistant at Indian Hills Community College from 1999-2005. He has a bachelor's degree from Hannibal-LaGrange College and a master's from Southwest Baptist University.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: College basketball coaching: Western Illinois hires Chad Boudreau
