JOLIET, Ill. — Alex Foster’s basketball career has taken him around the world, but he is excited to return home to coach the eighth-grade girls’ basketball team where his own basketball life started – at Aux Sable Middle School.

Foster attended Aux Sable before eventually attending Seton Academy in South Holland to advance his basketball career. Foster earned a scholarship to Division 1 Texas Tech after high school graduation. He attended Bradley University and the University of Albany in New York before graduating from Bradley with a degree in sports communication.

Foster got an agent and played for Finland and the country of Georgia for two years.

“I got to see the world just playing basketball,” he says.

But Foster’s life goals changed as his children grew and he wanted to be closer to home, he says. He kept in touch through the years with Alfonso Lopez, Aux Sable Dean of Students and Athletic Director.

Foster did not hesitate when Lopez called to ask him to come to coach the middle school’s girls’ basketball team. “I was like ‘Are you serious?’ Absolutely,” Foster says.

Lopez coached Foster when Lopez was the eighth-grade basketball coach and he was part of the first sixth-grade class to open Aux Sable in 2006-2007. Lopez followed Foster’s career and when Aux Sable was looking for a coach, he said he thought of Foster.

“He’s a huge role model for the kids,” Lopez says. “He will be at the school before practices and greet kids who are not on the team.”

Foster admits he is still learning about coaching but believes he will be a better coach since he was a basketball player. “If I see something in practice that’s wrong, I can correct it or show them how. I can still play.”

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