By Ryan Ernst
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Northern Kentucky University on Tuesday announced the hiring of assistant coach Kevin Listerman, who will leave his job as Boone County head coach to coach at his alma mater under newly promoted Dave Bezold.

NKU's Kevin Listerman was the starting point guard on the Norse's back-to-back national runner-up teams in 1996 and '97. (Jeff Swinger/file photo)

Listerman, who turns 27 today, coached at Boone for one year and took the Rebels to the regional title game. He started his head coaching career in 2003 at Bellevue High School. Prior to that, he was a graduate assistant at NKU under recently retired coach Ken Shields.

"When I left Northern two years ago, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go back to college coaching," Listerman said. "I had a great time at Bellevue and didn't intend to leave there, and the same thing at Boone County. This spring I was talking to Coach Bezold to see how things were shaking out. I saw the way he wanted to take the program and knew that was something I wanted to be involved with."

Listerman, a 2000 NKU graduate, was the starting point guard on the Norse's back-to-back national runner-up teams in 1996 and 1997.

Bezold was the only full-time assistant coach with those teams. He said Listerman's on-court qualities aided his development as a coach.

"The leadership he displayed on and off the floor, you don't measure people just on that all the time," Bezold said. "But the success he's had has spoken for itself. He stood on his own two feet and he was successful at both (high school) stops."

The program also announced Tuesday it would elevate part-time assistant David Marshall to a full-time employee.

"Whenever you can have somebody full time with good basketball knowledge, it does nothing but help you with recruiting and scouting and coaching and academics," Bezold said. "It's another set of eyes and another pair of hands."

---

E-mail rernst@enquirer.com