Tom Penders
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| Tom Penders | ||
|---|---|---|
| Title | Head coach | |
| College | Houston | |
| Sport | Basketball | |
| Born | May 23, 1945 (age 61) | |
| Place of birth |  Stratford, Connecticut |
|
| Career Highlights | ||
| Championships | ||
| MAAC Tournament Championship (1983) SWC Regular Season Championship (1992, 1994, 1995) |
||
| School as a player | ||
| 1964-1967 | Connecticut | |
| Position | Point guard | |
| Coaching positions | ||
| 1971-1974 1974-1978 1978-1986 1986-1988 1988-1998 1998-2001 2004-present |
Tufts Columbia Fordham Rhode Island Texas George Washington Houston |
|
Tom Penders is a college basketball head coach, currently in his third season at the University of Houston. He is from Stratford, Connecticut and has a 566-385 career record. Houston was a combined 39-24 wins in his first two seasons.
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[edit] Coaching career
[edit] 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 and Westwood One Radio.
[edit] 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. Additionally, the Colonials were named Atlantic 10 West Division Champions that year. In his final season, his team set a school record for total points scored in a season and they advanced to the semifinals of the A-10 Tournament. However, a series of off-the-court issues emerged that year, and Penders ultimately resigned, citing "burnout."
[edit] 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.
His time at Texas was the subject of a book, Burned Orange by Kyle Dalton.[1]
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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 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.
[edit] 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. He served as team captain for both teams as a senior and quarterbacked the Husky basketball team to a combined 59-16 record during his career. Penders is one of a select group of student-athletes who participated in both the NCAA Tournament (1965 and 1967) and the College World Series (1965). In 2001, he received the highest honor given by UConn Athletics when the school presented him the Red O’Neill Award for Lifetime Achievement. The Hartford Courant also named Penders as one of the three greatest athletes in the 21st Century from the Town of Stratford.
[edit] Professional Baseball Career
Upon graduation, the Cleveland Indians drafted Penders in the ninth round of the 1968 Major League Draft. In his one season as a professional baseball player, he played for the Indians’ Class A team at Rock Hill and was selected a Western Carolina League All-Star third baseman after hitting .343. Following the All-Star game, he finished the year hitting .302 at Rock Hill before being promoted to Cleveland’s Class AA affiliate at Waterbury.
[edit] Softball Hall of Fame
Penders retired from baseball after the season and began his career as a basketball coach in 1969. He also played fast-pitch softball during his early years as a coach and was a member of five ASA National Championship teams in 1969, 1970, 1972, 1976 and 1983. He was also named a First-Team All-American center fielder in 1975 and 1976. He also played for the USA Team that finished in a three-way tie for first place at the 1983 World University Games before being inducted into the Connecticut Softball Hall of Fame in 1989.
[edit] A Coaching Family
Penders comes from quite a coaching 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.
[edit] References
Categories: American basketball coaches | Texas Longhorns men's basketball coaches | George Washington Colonials men's basketball coaches | Rhode Island Rams men's basketball coaches | American basketball players | UConn Huskies men's basketball players | Houston Cougars men's basketball coaches | Living people
