​Thirty-two years ago, coach Larry Ham let Chris Wallace, the star quarterback of the South High School football team and a senior that season, call the defensive plays for the basketball squad. “I’m the offense on the football field,” Wallace explained, “but in basketball, it begins and ends with who’s guarding, who’s grabbing 50-50 balls, and who’s winning the rebound war.” That line of thinking defined his approach during the 1993-94 season, and it still informs his philosophy today as he steps into his first season as the head coach of the Springfield boys basketball team.
“Defense sets the tone for a lot of what we do on offense,” Wallace said. “It’s about pushing the ball in transition when we can. If we can’t, we’ll fall back into our standard procedures, but that’s the precedent we want to establish now with our student-athletes.” Springfield announced Wallace’s hiring on June 1, replacing Matt Yinger, who stepped down in April after a 28-48 record over three seasons. Wallace will continue as the football team’s offensive coordinator, and he noted that the basketball team will practice in the evenings after football practices whenever seasons overlap.
The Springfield basketball squad, which includes many football players, is slated to play its first game in mid-December. That schedule aligns with the football program’s history of deep playoff runs, a pattern Wallace acknowledges and embraces. “If I have to do double duty, that means we’re doing what we’re supposed to do on the football field,” he said.
Springfield has endured seven consecutive losing seasons on the basketball court, mirroring a rough stretch the football program faced before Maurice Douglass arrived in 2014. Douglass transformed the football program into a winner, reaching the state championship game three straight seasons and eventually establishing it as a perennial power. Wallace aims to replicate that blueprint, seeing a parallel between the two programs’ pasts and their potential futures.
“The same group of kids who performed at a high level on the football field are the ones we expect to elevate the basketball program,” Wallace stated. “So the standard doesn’t change. Once you set a standard, that becomes the goal, and I’m confident our players will embody that. That’s where we see ourselves going.”
For Wallace, the road to sustained success begins with cultivating the right culture within the basketball program. “One thing I told my assistant coaches is that we all agree there isn’t a defined culture for basketball right now,” he said. “We built a culture in football—a sense of belonging and accountability that starts with the trainers and extends to the players. That’s the framework we want to replicate in basketball as well. I believe it can work, but it requires the players to commit: this is what we’re going to do, this is how we’re going to do it.”