FAIRBANKS - When Nanooks' women's basketball assistant coach Chad Dyson talks about basketball, it is never just about winning, despite his tenure as one of the most decorated high school coaches in Alaska history. He is focused on something bigger than scoreboards or standings: preparing his players for life. 

"You always get to control your effort and your attitude," he said. "The biggest thing I want to bring into this program is learning how to face adversity, and being okay with: Did I control my effort? Did I control my attitude? If you gave it everything you have, you either win or you learn."

For Dyson, this program isn't just a team: it is a vehicle for growth. "If you can't control those things, you're not going to be able to do hard things," he continued. "When you leave here and life gets hard, if you weren't ready to face adversity, you'll struggle. But if we can teach them that through the game of basketball, they'll be ready when life comes, because life is not easy."

That philosophy, rooted in effort and resilience, is exactly what head coach Micheal Ricks saw when he brought Dyson onto his staff. "Some of the best, smartest people I've worked with since I got the opportunity to be a college coach have been high school coaches," Ricks said. "I thought it would be important to have a coach that already had a voice of their own, already had experience leading a team, and I think we got that and more with Coach Dyson."

Dyson's resume backs that up. At Anchorage Christian School (now known as Mountain City Christian Academy), he built a dynasty, capturing six state championships and establishing a culture of excellence that produced players like Destiny Reimers, who now joins him as a graduate assistant on the Nanooks staff. 

Ricks knew the pairing made sense. "With Coach Reimers, someone who's been in the program, someone with ties to Alaska, she has this great opportunity to go to graduate school, and then have a chance to work with us and learn from us. So for me, having her here is a blessing. Having played for Coach Dyson, and then she's a tough enough worker that she's kind of flowed into the coaching side of it pretty perfectly."

For Dyson, coaching alongside Reimers is more than just a professional partnership; it is a full-circle moment. "Going from coaching Destiny in high school, watching her develop as a leader, she was a captain for us, she came here, she was a captain here at UAF," he said. "So finding out she got this opportunity, it was just a cool moment of watching her leadership develop all the way around: as a player, as a young adult in college, and now as someone who has graduated and is looking to continue to lead people."

Reimers remembers those early years vividly. "He pushed you past your limits and out of your comfort zone in ways you never thought you had, and it pushed you to the limits of where it made me a better athlete, a better person, a better leader. I could get put out of my comfort zone, but I could still succeed, I could still work hard." Her time under Dyson wasn't just about basketball; it was about character development and lessons she could still lean on today. 

Now, working side by side with Coach Ricks and Coach Dyson has given her a whole new appreciation for the coaching world. "I think they've really shown me how, at the college level right now, you get so many different personalities, ethnicities, people from all over the world, and you have to learn how to coach them all as one team. This is how we create a team and a family. We're learning how to coach all of them to become one as a team, become successful, and how to work hard."

That continuity of mentorship into collaboration reflects Dyson's belief that coaching is about relationships first. "Developing someone athletically is so tangible," he said. "But I think the focus should be on things like loving people. When I was coaching high school, one thing you could guarantee was that if it was after practice and you wanted a meal, my wife had cooked it. Kids were at my house, eating food, hanging out. The camaraderie allowed me to coach them harder because they knew they were loved."

Now, he brings that same energy into the Nanooks women's team. "We try to do little things here at college: remembering people's birthdays, having team meals, going to volleyball games together, any touchpoints you can have off the court that show them we're just being around," Dyson said. "If you want to build a relationship and you want them to work hard, you gotta spend time with them outside of practice."

Together, Dyson and Reimers represent the heart of Alaska basketball: investment within one another. Their shared journey from the Anchorage Christian gym to the Nanooks' bench, alongside Ricks' leadership, shows what can happen when mentorship becomes a partnership and when coaching becomes something bigger than the game itself. 

At the program's core is the belief that success begins with effort, attitude, and heart. "You either win or you learn," Dyson said, and throughout this team, the coaching staff is determined to build a culture where both outcomes lead to growth.

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