Chris Bates, whose calmness and strength while dealing with personal and professional adversity has inspired every member of the Princeton men's lacrosse program, recently finished his third season as the head coach fo the Tigers.

Bates led Princeton to the outright Ivy League championship and into the NCAA tournament in 2012. In his first three seasons, he has now won two Ivy titles and made two NCAA tournament appearances.

The 2012 Tigers outscored their six Ivy opponents 81-35 while putting together the first 6-0 Ivy record for the team since 2001. Princeton reached double figures in all six Ivy games, marking the sixth time in program history that the team has done so in every Ivy game.

Bates also coached two first-team All-Americas (Tom Schreiber and Chad Wiedmaier) and the Ivy League Player of the Year (Tyler Fiorito) in 2012.

Faced with the often-difficult task of replacing a Hall of Fame coach, Bates took Princeton to a share of the ivy League title, the championship of the first-ever Ivy league tournament and a spot in the NCAA tournament in 2010, his first with the Tigers.

His second season saw Princeton lose 16 players to injury, six of whom missed at least 10 games, including his top two returning scorers.

Bates, who took over for Bill Tierney in June 2009, produced the Ivy League Rookie of the Year in each of his first two years. He also had seven first-team All-Ivy League and seven All-America selections in his first two seasons, with the 2012 awards to be announced this week.

Before coming to Princeton, Bates spent 10 years as the head coach at Drexel, where he went 70-71, with 14 wins his first three years, 25 his next four and 31 his last three. 

Drexel won two Colonial Athletic Association championships in his last three years, and Bates led his team to the program's first-ever win over a No. 1-ranked team when the Dragons knocked off Virginia in 2007.

Bates is a 1990 graduate of Dartmouth, where he played attack and midfield and earned All-Ivy League honors. He was 1-3 as a player against Princeton, including an 11-4 loss in 1990 in the third-to-last game of his college career. Princeton would go on in 1990 to make the program's first NCAA tournament appearance; Princeton has played in 18 of the last 20 NCAA tournaments and won six championships.

Bates played in the North-South all-star game after his senior year and graduated with a degree in psychology before earning a master's in education from North Carolina. He played for eight seasons in the Major Indoor Lacrosse League (now the National Lacrosse League) and won three championships with the Philadelphia Wings while earning all-pro honors in his one season with the Charlotte Cobras.

His coaching career began in 1992, when he started the program at Archbishop Ryan in Philadelphia. He became an assistant coach at Drexel in 1995 and took over as head coach in 2000.

Bates is a native of Katonah, N.Y., and a member of the Hudson Valley Lacrosse Hall of Fame.

He has a 10-year-old son Nicholas. His wife, Dr. Ann Baldwin Bates, passed away on Nov. 30, 2011, after three bouts with cancer.