Football

LVC Head Football Coach Chris Thompson Building a Program to Challenge the Top Teams in Division III

by
LebCoSports Staff
July 14, 2026

By Robert Griffiths

Drawing on more than 25 years of high school coaching experience in Toms River, New Jersey, Griffiths now calls Lebanon County home and brings his insight, perspective, and lifelong love of football to his coverage.

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LVC Head Football Coach Chris Thompson Building a Program to Challenge the Top Teams in Division III

Last season, with back-to-back victories over nationally ranked Delaware Valley and Eastern, LVC served notice that there is a new contender in the Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC).

As LVC enters the 2026 season, Coach Thompson is not taking his foot off the accelerator. He welcomes 48 incoming freshmen and a total of 13 spring and fall transfers to an already solid program, with the possibility of adding a couple more before the report date in August.

Chris Thompson, head football coach at Lebanon Valley College, is highly experienced and knows there is a world of difference between occasional successful seasons and a consistently winning program.

“There is a real fine line between winning and losing,” Coach Thompson states. “As I get ready for year 22, you can’t help but reflect on the four seasons I have been here, along with last year’s successes and failures, and continue to march.

“Having learned this from Coach Williams in my early days at Manheim Central High School, to then playing for Coach Danny Hale and Coach Jim Monos at Bloomsburg University, to then spending 16 years working at all levels of professional football alongside Super Bowl-winning coaches and executives, you have to continue showing up each day and attacking that day with a relentless mindset. We ask ourselves each day: Did we get 1% better today?”

Thompson’s background made him a natural choice to lead the Dutchmen into their next chapter. Already deeply familiar with LVC’s players, culture, and expectations, he had spent four seasons as the program’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. During that stretch, the Dutchmen developed one of the MAC’s most consistent offenses, recorded three consecutive top-four conference finishes, and appeared in the Centennial-MAC Bowl Series three times. His more than 20 years of coaching and executive experience, including over 15 years in professional football, also brought a valuable combination of continuity, recruiting strength, player development, and high-level leadership. After Coach Drake departed following the 2024 campaign, Thompson served as interim head coach beginning in February 2025. After guiding the Dutchmen to a 6-5 record and earning a bowl appearance, he was officially named LVC’s 28th head football coach on December 11, 2025.

However, before the Gatorade had even dried following the string of improbable victories by his team and prior to the interim label being removed, Thompson was already thinking about the next season.

Like every coach striving to build sustained success, he continued to wrestle with one nagging question: “Did I do enough to build a strong, consistent, winning program?”

Reflecting on the season, Thompson said:

“I’m very proud of the way our players and coaches handled everything from the months leading up to the start of the season to all the adversity we faced during it. They laid the foundation for us as we look to the future and do everything we can to take LVC football to new heights.

“The three losses by five points still sting, but beating nationally ranked teams in back-to-back weeks, playing in our third postseason bowl game in four seasons, marching on Kreiderheim by beating Albright on a last-second field goal, having our second winning season since 2013, graduating a large senior class of more than 34 seniors, growing our roster and full-time in-office staff to new levels, and having a sold-out golf outing and summer high school team camps are all reasons why we look to reload again in 2026.”

At the heart of Thompson’s vision is the belief that a winning program begins with instilling a culture of excellence, one that includes discipline and trust that players exhibit both on and off the field.

He is also proud of the first-rate coaching staff he has hired, a staff that provides players with consistent leadership.

Player development is another priority of the program he is building. Thompson stresses the ongoing effort to develop strength and conditioning, thereby placing his players in a position to compete and win.

Finally, recruiting is not just a process of finding talented players. It also involves recruiting players who fit into the scheme and winning culture he is building at LVC.

Thompson added:

“When you have a player-driven culture like we have, paired with the coaching staff we have in place, along with the resources we have and those that are coming, plus everyone collaborating and working toward the same goal and vision, I’m not surprised that we have 52 new student-athletes joining us this August.”

Selecting a head football coach is not an easy process. The qualities necessary to build a successful program are diverse. They begin with being a strong communicator, having the ability to recognize and develop talent, implementing a scheme that is not too rigid, and possessing the ability to recruit new talent.

It is safe to say that an effective head coach needs to possess some degree of CEO-type ability. Nearly without exception, these qualities come only with experience.

When it comes to experience, very few coaches come to the table with the wealth of football experience possessed by Chris Thompson, head football coach at Lebanon Valley College.