At only 23 years old, assistant men’s basketball coach Carsyn Meyers has already played an integral role in the operation of the Linn-Benton athletic department.
Since 2020, Meyers has helped out all of Linn-Benton’s athletic programs by stepping in as a play-by-play announcer, media manager, and now director of basketball operations for the men’s team.
With a personal goal of earning a master’s degree and hopes of eventually coaching basketball professionally, Meyers’s tale is a story of sacrifices and dedication for a sport he has always loved.
Raised in Sandy, Oregon and surrounded by basketball from an early age, Meyers’ first involvements with the sport included playing, refereeing, and even coaching middle school basketball during his senior year of high school. Inspired by his father, a former basketball coach at Milton Freewater High School, Meyers became enveloped in the world of athletics.
During high school, Meyers became one of his school’s best tennis players while also enjoying activities such as photography, videography, and digital design. However, things took a turn in the spring of 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic ended his hopes of playing tennis collegiately.
“I felt like I could have had an opportunity to walk on at a college to play tennis,” said Meyers. “Obviously, Covid happens – that kind of ruined that idea for me, so I kind of just said, ‘Let’s go to school!'”
Motivated by the sports culture of the college and combined with his interest in digital arts, Meyers enrolled at the University of Oregon in the fall of 2020, hoping to earn a bachelor’s degree in journalism. However, with the pandemic in full effect, Meyers soon realized that his first-year college experience wasn’t quite what he had expected. After spending much of his first term at UO isolated in his dorm and taking online classes, Meyers knew he wanted to do more and told his father he wanted to get back into basketball.
From his years as a coach, Carsyn’s father had developed a long-time friendship with Jerod Gibson, the former head coach of the Linn-Benton women’s basketball team. Meyers reached out to Gibson, and not long after, Meyers joined the program as a student manager for Gibson’s team at Linn-Benton. Still enrolled at UO, he would drive from Eugene to Albany twice a week to watch the team practice.
With a full-time class schedule to go with his obligations as a student manager, some at Linn-Benton questioned whether or not Meyers could manage the job.
“They told me, ‘We’ve never had a student manager stay more than 90 days’ and I’m like, ‘I feel like I’ll break that, I feel like I’ll be here longer than that,'” said Meyers.
After a busy first year, Meyers stuck around, and in May of 2021, he earned an official spot on the Linn-Benton coaching staff as assistant coach of the women’s basketball team.
Meyers transferred to Linn-Benton from the University of Oregon in the fall of 2021 and began rapidly finding ways to engage himself even more with the athletics community.
One day, while Meyers was chatting with athletic director Mark Majeski, he learned that the athletic department needed a new play-by-play announcer. He showed interest in the position, and after Majeski offered him the spot, Meyers soon started calling games for the volleyball, baseball, and men’s basketball programs at Linn-Benton.
Taking journalism-focused classes under advisor Rob Priewe, Meyers sharpened his digital design skills while following the 2021 Linn-Benton volleyball team and the 2022 Linn-Benton baseball team during their championship runs. His understanding of graphic design and Linn-Benton’s sports programs earned Meyers the job of media manager for the athletics department. To top things off, Meyers also accepted an offer to become the sports editor of The Commuter for the 2022-23 school year.
“I think that was kind of my attitude coming to Linn-Benton,” he said, “I thought, I’m gonna do everything I can and get as much experience as I can.”
Entering the 2022-23 school year with a boatload of roles and responsibilities, Meyers gained valuable coaching experience as an assistant coach on the women’s basketball team. After going 15-11 during his first full year, the Linn-Benton women’s basketball team improved to 21-7 in the 2022-23 season. The program ended a playoff drought of over 10 years and gave Meyers important insight into how rewarding coaching can be when a team achieves its goals.
During the season, Meyers learned from Gibson about the importance of focusing on the little things and sticking to a plan – advice that has stuck with him.
Despite moving on academically from Linn-Benton to Oregon State University in 2023, Meyers continued to fulfill his duty as an assistant coach, media manager, and play-by-play announcer whilst pursuing a bachelor’s degree in digital communications arts. Meyers continued in these roles until the summer of 2024, only calling it quits to take the job of director of basketball operations for the men’s basketball team.
“Essentially, the director of operations job is anything that needs to be done, gets done,” Meyers said. “I’m more than happy to be a part of that success and to try and make the best experience for our student athletes as possible.”
Under his current job, Meyers is responsible for key parts of the functionality of the men’s basketball team. Meyers helps plan and organize travel and dining, assists with recruiting and welcoming new players, and monitors players’ academic progress by meeting with team members. In addition, Meyers gets to use his digital design and media management skills to create graphics and run the team’s social media pages.
However, to make the busy workload manageable alongside a full-time class schedule at OSU, Meyers has had to work through a fair share of difficulties. Balancing social life and coaching responsibilities as a young college basketball coach is nearly impossible, according to Meyers. Throughout his college tenure, Meyers has had to forgo hanging out with his friends to spend time recruiting, watching film, or even studying.
While going to a high school basketball game instead of a friend’s place might be considered odd to those oblivious, Meyers knows that it is a necessary step to becoming the elite-level coach he wants to be.
Meyers has also had to deal with living away from his girlfriend of three years. The pair had met at the University of Oregon before he had transferred to Linn-Benton. With Meyers working in Albany and his girlfriend in Portland, the couple has remained strong together despite not seeing each other often. Despite the setbacks and complications, Meyers knows that if he puts the work in now, his goal of coaching at the highest level will become even easier to achieve later in life.
“You have to be firm in your beliefs, you have to really want to be successful. The most important person that has to advocate for you is yourself,” he said.
With a season now in the books as director of operations, Meyers looks forward to graduating from Oregon State University in the coming months. However, the journey doesn’t stop there for him, as he plans on earning a master’s degree in a sports-related field in the following years.
While a specific degree and a specific university aren’t set for Meyers yet, there’s only one requirement he’s looking for at whatever institute he chooses to go to next: “I will get any degree; I will do any schoolwork I need to do,” said Meyers, “as long as I can either coach there or I can be a grad assistant. I’m 100% set on the grind and becoming a basketball coach.”
This article originally appeared in the March 2025 edition of The Commuter.
