HARROGATE, Tenn. — Lance Egnatz never thought about coaching basketball — until he realized he wasn't going to play forever.

The 1998 Seneca Valley graduate had wrapped up his playing career with two years at Penn State-Beaver and two years at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., and was at a crossroads.

“Once I got done playing, the next best thing to being a player is a coach,” Egnatz said. “I wanted to stay down in Florida.”

At Lynn, Egnatz played for coach Josh Schertz, whom he would follow to Lincoln Memorial University, where the Railsplitters have enjoyed enormous success in their three years together.

After opening the season by winning their first 22 games, the Railsplitters rolled to a 27-3 record, won the South Atlantic Conference regular-season title with a 16-2 mark, won the conference tournament and earned a trip to the NCAA Division II Southwest Region Tournament, where the team lost in the quarterfinals.

However, getting to that success at Lincoln wasn't easy. Egnatz had to work his way up, at one point without much income.

After graduating from Lynn in 2002 with a bachelor's degree in sports and recreational management, Egnatz spent four years coaching middle school basketball and football at Somerset Academy in Florida and became a full-time teacher.

From 2005 to 2006, he served as the head basketball coach. In his last season, he earned about $45,000 teaching and coaching.

When the stipend that was to come never did, Egnatz found himself out of a teaching position, so he became a volunteer coach at Division I Polk Community College.

“I left Somerset with no job,” said Egnatz, who began working at some camps and met Polk coach Matt Furjanic, the former Robert Morris University head coach.

“He said he'd try to find me a job on campus to make some money and I said, ‘Yeah, I'm in.'

“They had a collegiate high school on campus and I taught a couple of classes, worked in the weight room, monitoring it,” Egnatz added.

He spent two years at Polk before Schertz, an assistant coach at Lynn, came calling.

“Lance is a guy who always maximizes his abilities,” said Schertz. “He's an honest person, has integrity and a great work ethic.”

“The thing is, I didn't have to teach, just focus on a team and basketball,” Egnatz said. “I recruit, do paperwork, keep track of a budget, scouting reports and I'm in charge of strength and conditioning.”

The year before Schertz and Egnatz came to Lincoln Memorial, the Railsplitters won only seven games, including just one conference win.

For 2008-09, they doubled the win total to 14, bumping up the SAC victories to eight, then had 20 wins in the second year.

Schertz has seen first-hand how Egnatz has come into his own.

“He certainly has grown as a coach each year,” Schertz said. “He's taken on more responsibility each year, going from a junior college to a four-year program.

“He's light years ahead of where he was.”

As for his coaching future, Egnatz entertains ideas of getting to a Division I program.

“I plan to be there whether me getting it or with someone else through networking,” he said.

“It's hard. We talk about it all the time. This is the time of year all the jobs are opening up. They made it tough to leave here.

“It's been a great ride so far and we want to keep it rolling,” Egnatz added.