Men's Basketball Coaching Staff
Head Coach Tom Palombo
Tom Palombo took over as Guilford's head men's basketball coach in July, 2003. In 2006-07, Palombo guided Guilford to its best record in over 30 years (24-5) and its first NCAA Division III playoff appearance. The Quakers won three NCAA games to reach the national quarterfinals before falling to Virginia Wesleyan, 81-71, March 10. After guiding Guilford to a school-record 15-3 league record this year, Palombo won his second ODAC’s Men’s Basketball Coach of the Year Award. He has a 67-42 record in four Guilford seasons and a 167-105 mark in 10 years as a college men’s basketball coach. Four Quakers have earned All-ODAC honors six times under Palombo’s guidance including Ben Strong '08, who was named the 2007 Division III Player of the Year by D3hoop.com and the NABC. He has produced the first back-to-back winning records in 2003-04 and 2004-05 since the 1978-79 and 1979-80 seasons.The 2004- Old Dominion Athletic Conference co-Coach of the Year, Palombo has coached four All-ODAC student-athletes as well as 2004-05 ODAC Rookie of the Year Kerry Atkinson. 2005-06 also saw the Quakers' Ben Strong '08 earn first-team All-ODAC accolades.
He moved to Guilford from Defiance where he compiled a 100-63 record and coached nine all-conference players as the Yellow Jackets' head men's basketball coach. His six-year stint as the Ohio school's men's coach followed three seasons as its women's mentor during which time the team went 78-7. Palombo's overall basketball head-coaching record is 305-147 in 17 seasons with six NCAA Tournament berths, including three national quarterfinal appearances. He also coached the Yellow Jackets' men's golf team for nine years, the tennis team for three years and taught in the sports science department since 1997.
Guilford's 14th head men's basketball coach, Palombo guided Defiance to the 1999 Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association Tournament title, earning his first NCAA Division III Tournament bid with the men's team. Two years later the Yellow Jackets returned to the national playoffs after winning the 2000-01 Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC) championship.
Full-court defensive pressure and up-tempo offenses characterize Palombo's teams. Defiance went 17-10 in 2002-03 and produced the HCAC's Freshman of the Year and team scoring title for the second straight season. Despite missing a conference tournament title game for the first time in four years, the Yellow Jackets led the HCAC in scoring and attendance and finished sixth among Division III teams with an 85.9 points per game average. The 2001-02 club ranked second among the national scoring leaders (91.6 ppg.).
Palombo took over Defiance's 8-17 men's team in 1997
after finishing his second straight 28-1 season as the Yellow Jackets' women's
coach. He guided an eight-player ladies' unit to a 22-5 mark and the second
round of the NCAA playoffs in 1995, followed by a 28-1 campaign that earned 
him
the 1996 D3News National Division III Coach of the Year Award. The Yellow
Jackets' women reached the Division III quarterfinals and led the nation in
scoring and attendance in 1995-96 and 1996-97.
A 1989 Virginia Wesleyan graduate, Palombo's hire marks his return to the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) where he starred on Don Forsyth's basketball teams and played baseball for the Marlins from 1986-89. He competed for Guilford College Athletics Hall of Fame member Conrad Parker's '62 basketball teams at Bayside High School in Virginia Beach. After earning his bachelor's degree in communications and journalism from Virginia Wesleyan in 1989, Palombo received his master's degree in education with an emphasis in sport management from Old Dominion in 1991 and returned to Virginia Wesleyan as its women's basketball coach, softball coach, and sports information director. He averaged 15 basketball wins in three-plus seasons and won the 1992 ODAC Coach of the Year Award. The Marlins' softball squads went 101-56-1 and captured three straight ODAC titles from 1991-93.
He serves on the NCAA South Region Advisory Committee and is the chair of the Men's ODAC Basketball Coaches. Palombo coached the ODAC Senior All-Star game in 2007 which won over USA-South's Senior All-Stars.
Palombo and his wife, Amy, live in Greensboro with their four young children, Kylee, Reagan, Davis, and Caleb.