Calvin University

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Mark Christner heads into his seventh year year as head women's basketball coach at Calvin University.

In six years as Calvin head women's basketball coach, Christner has fashioned an overall won-loss record of 98-49 including a conference record of 59-26. 

In 2025, after five straight trips to the MIAA Tournament semifinals, the Knights got over the hump and advanced to the MIAA Tournament finals for the first time in Christener's tenure. Calvin finished the job when they defeated Trine to win the MIAA Tournament Championship and receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournamnet. Calvin finished the season with a 18-11 overall record and a 11-5 conference record. 

In 2024, he led a Calvin team without a senior on its roster to an 18-8 overall record, a second place finish in the MIAA. In 2023, he led Calvin to its first 20-win campaign since 2017. The Knights were nationally-ranked for 11 weeks during the 2022-23 campaign. In 2022, he led Calvin to a 19-8 record, Calvin's best won-loss mark in five years. The Knights also received NCAA III Regional ranking status over the final three weeks of the 2022 regular season. His teams have achieved in the classroom as all four of his Calvin teams have received the MIAA Team GPA Award for posting a cumulative team grade point average of 3.30 or above. In 2023, his senior post player Gabby Timmer was named a D3hoops.com All-American and a College Sports Communicators Academic All-American. 

Christner returned to Calvin in April which marked a homecoming for the 1999 Calvin University graduate.

A native of Big Rapids, Michigan, Christner returned to Calvin after spending the previous nine years as head men’s basketball coach at Waynesburg University (Pa.). Prior to serving as head men’s basketball coach at Waynesburg, Christner spent eight years as an assistant coach with the Calvin men’s basketball program and three years as an assistant coach with the Calvin women’s basketball program.

Christner journeyed back to Grand Rapids with his wife Sara (Plasman) Christner and son Leo (18) and daughters Elin (15) and Nora (13). His wife Sara is an alumna of both the Calvin women’s basketball and Calvin softball programs.

At Waynesburg, Christner took over a men’s basketball program that had posted a 2-22 record the year prior to his arrival. He led the Yellow Jackets to five double-digit win campaigns including an 18-11 record during the 2014-15 season that saw Waynesburg reached the President’s Athletics Conference Tournament Championship game. This past academic year, Christner has also served as Waynesburg's Assistant Athletic Director in charge of compliance and player and coach development. 

During his eight years (2002-2010) as an assistant men’s basketball coach and head men’s junior varsity coach at Calvin, Christner helped lead the Knights to four berths in the NCAA Division III national tournament. During his time on the bench, Calvin posted an impressive 158-73 record and won three Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) regular season titles. Over that same stretch, the Knights won three MIAA tournament titles and advanced all the way to the NCAA Division III National Semifinals in 2005.

Prior to working with the men’s team, Christner broke in as a coach at Calvin with the women’s basketball team from 1999 to 2002. In 2000, the Calvin women made it all the way to the NCAA Division III Tournament Round of 16

Christner earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1999 from Calvin, where he majored in history and minored in physical education with an emphasis in coaching. He went on to earn a Master of Arts degree in physical education with a pedagogy emphasis in 2005 from Western Michigan University. At Calvin, he played two years on the Calvin junior varsity men’s basketball team and one year on the varsity.
 
He is also an experienced teacher. Christner was a Health, Physical Education, Recreation, Dance, & Sport (HPERDS) instructor at Calvin from 2006 until he left the school and was an adjunct instructor in the same program from 2004 to 2006. He also spent four years (2000-2004) as a social studies teacher at both the Creston Christian School and the Holy Spirit School in Grand Rapids, Mich.