CARBONDALE — Following a standout college career and playing 16 years as a pro, including six seasons in the NBA, Lee Nailon has embarked on a new journey–head coach of the Carbondale Terriers.

Nailon played an up tempo style in college under head coach Billy Tubbs at TCU. Nailon says he wants his Terriers’ teams to play that same full-court, pressing style.

He and his wife, Gerianna, who is a Centralia native, were living in Texas when former Terriers and Orphans coach Rick Moss reached out about the opening. Nailon says from his first meeting with the Carbondale administration, it felt like home.

Nailon went through NBA’s assistant coaching program and had worked with the Texas Legends G League team in a addition to coaching AAU and training athletes of all ages in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. He admits coaching a high school team, much less one in Southern Illinois, was not his plan, but that all changed when he came Carbondale.

We went one-on-one with Nailon to talk about his transition to the Terriers’ head coach.