- Tom Penders
College coach infobox
Name = Tom Penders
Sport =Basketball
| ImageWidth =
Caption =
DateOfBirth = birth date and age|1945|5|23
Birthplace = flagicon|United StatesStratford, Connecticut
DateOfDeath =
Deathplace =
College = Houston
Title = Head coach
Awards =
Championships = MAAC Tournament Championship (1983)
SWC Regular Season Championship (1992, 1994, 1995)
CurrentRecord =
OverallRecord =
Player = *
Years = 1964-1967
Team = UConn
Position =Point guard
Coach = *
CoachYears = 1971-1974
1974-1978
1978-1986
1986-1988
1988-1998
1998-2001
2004-present
CoachTeams = Tufts
Columbia
Fordham
Rhode Island
Texas
George Washington
Houston
CollegeHOFID =
BBallHOF =Tom Penders is a
college basketball head coach , currently in his fourth season at theUniversity of Houston . He is fromStratford, Connecticut and has a 607-389 career record. Houston was a combined 80-48 in his first four seasons.Coaching career
High School
Penders went to Tufts after posting a 59-10 record as a high school coach at Bullard Havens Tech and Bridgeport Central High School in Connecticut. He led Bullard Havens to a 14-6 record in his first season as a head coach. The next year he guided Bridgeport Central to a 23-2 record and a number two ranking in the state. The following year, he was named the New York Daily News Coach of the Year after leading Bridgeport to a 20-1 mark and Number One ranking.
Fordham, Columbia, Tufts
He went to Rhode Island after heading the basketball program at
Fordham University for eight years and compiling a 125-114 record. In 1980-81, Penders was named the New York Metropolitan Area Coach of the Year after leading Fordham to a 19-9 record.Before his stint at Fordham, Penders coached at
Columbia University , for four seasons. In his final two years there, Penders led the school to back-to-back winning seasons as Columbia finished the 1976-77 campaign with a 16-10 record and was 15-11 1975-76.Penders began his collegiate coaching career at
Tufts University in 1971, and compiled a 54-18 record in three seasons. On October 6, 2006, Penders and his 1972-73 Tufts team were inducted into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame.Rhode Island
At the
University of Rhode Island , Penders led the Rams to the 1988 NCAA Sweet 16 with wins over Missouri and Syracuse in the first two rounds. Rhode Island lost, 73-72, to Duke in the Sweet 16 game.He took over Rhode Island’s program on October 4, 1986, two weeks before the regular season began. He was named the
Atlantic 10 Conference Co-Coach of the Year after guiding the Rams to a 20-10 record and a berth into the NIT his first year.Texas
In his 10 seasons at the
University of Texas , Penders compiled a 208-110 record; during his time there, he became the "winningest" basketball coach in school history. He led the Longhorns to three Southwest Conference championships and eight NCAA Tournament appearances, including an "Elite Eight" in 1990, and the "Sweet 16" in 1997. His teams at Texas averaged 20.8 wins per season, 87.2 points per game, and forced 19 turnovers per contest.When Penders was hired in 1988, he inherited a team that won 16 games the year before; the Erwin Center (the Longhorns' home court) averaged 4,028 fans per game (in a 16,231-seat arena). Immediately after his arrival, Penders put his brand on the program. He called his team the "Runnin' Horns" and spoke to every alumnus and booster group in the state. His first team finished second in the Southwest Conference and earned a bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Longhorns also set 22 school and SWC records while more than doubling their attendance average to 10,011 per game, the largest increase in NCAA Division I.
In his final year at Texas, Penders underwent heart surgery and was unable to coach the first few games of what would end up being a tumultuous season. He would ultimately resign in 1998, after a scandal involved the release of a player's grade report to the local media, which violated NCAA rules.
His time at Texas was the subject of a book, "Burned Orange" by Kyle Dalton. [ [http://www.amazon.com/dp/1886110921/ Amazon.com] ]
George Washington
Penders served as head coach at the
George Washington University from 1998-2001, where he compiled a 49-42 record and led the Colonials to the 1999 NCAA Tournament. Penders' only winning season while directing the Colonials was his first, where he inherited a talented team comprised mostly of recruits of former Colonial head coachMike Jarvis . Penders cited "burnout" and resigned from GW in 2001 after a number of scandals on campus, including an on-campus rape and weapons violations by player Atilla Cobsy which Penders did not tell the GW administration about, ["Penders out at GW," [http://robots.cnnsi.com/basketball/college/news/2001/04/20/gw_penders/ SportsIllustrated.com] ] ["Penders resigns amid turmoil", [http://media.www.gwhatchet.com/media/storage/paper332/news/2001/04/23/Sports/Penders.Resigns.Amid.Turmoil-70895.shtml GW Hatchet] ] ["New Charges Filed Against GW's Cosby," "Washington Post", Mark Asher, April 17, 2001] a phonecard scandal involving his son, who was an assistant coach, ["4 GW Players Break NCAA Rules With Unauthorized Calls," "Washington Post," Mark Asher, April 18, 2001] ["GW basketball faces NCAA violations," [http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/college/men/news/2001/news.045uwire2.html SportsIllustrated.com] ] as well as star guardSir Valiant Brown leaving after his sophomore year for theNBA because he wouldn't qualify to play the next season for academic reasons. ["Brown plans jump to NBA", [http://media.www.gwhatchet.com/media/storage/paper332/news/2001/04/19/News/Brown.Plans.Jump.To.Nba-69555.shtml GW Hatchet] ] Penders said his resignation was because after 30 years of coaching, it was "time for a sabattical," and said the resignation was not related to the off-the-court issues. ["Citing Burnout, Penders Resigns," "Washington Post," Mark Asher and Thomas Heath, April 21, 2001.] The university honored the rest of Penders' contract, with GW athletic director Jack Kvancz said honoring it "was the class thing to do." When GW's Kvancz was questioned about the payout (in the area of $1M) he refused to comment. " ["Penders resigns amid turmoil", [http://media.www.gwhatchet.com/media/storage/paper332/news/2001/04/23/Sports/Penders.Resigns.Amid.Turmoil-70895.shtml GW Hatchet] ]Houston
In his first season at Houston, Penders guided the Cougars to the nation’s fourth-best turnaround with an 18-14 overall record and Houston led the nation in turnover margin and set both team and individual school records for most three-point field goals made in a season.
In his second season, Penders led the Cougars to their first 20-win season, first back-to-back winning seasons and first back-to-back postseason tournament appearances since 1992-93. He also led Houston to back-to-back wins over nationally-ranked teams for the first time since the 1984 NCAA Midwest Regional Tournament and their first postseason tournament victory since 1988 in his first two years at the school.
Houston finished the 2005-06 campaign with a 2-2 record against nationally-ranked teams after beating No. 25 LSU on November 29 and 13th-ranked Arizona December 3 in a nationally-televised game on
ESPN2 .Houston’s postseason tournament victory was against BYU in the first round of the 2006 NIT. It also was Penders’ first career victory in the NIT.
Houston led the nation in steals with a 12.4 average, and the Cougars finished second in turnover margin with an average margin of +7.5.
Penders came to Houston after spending three years as an analyst for
ESPN andWestwood One Radio .College playing career
Penders played both baseball and basketball at the
University of Connecticut , where he starred as a center fielder for the baseball team and a point guard for the basketball team from 1964-67.Family
In addition to Tom and Tommy, Jr. serving as basketball coaches, his father was a longtime baseball coach at Stratford High School from 1931-68, and led the school to four state championships. His brother, Jim, is the baseball coach at East Catholic High School, and was named the national high school Coach of the Year in 1996. Just like his father, Jim won four state championships.
His two nephews also are collegiate baseball coaches. Jim was named the head coach at Connecticut in 2003 after serving seven years as an assistant coach and playing four years for the Huskies. Rob serves is the head baseball coach at St. Edwards University in Austin.
Coaching record
References
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
