Men's Basketball Release - Palombo Hired - Guilford College

Tom Palombo File

Greensboro, NC (07/23/03) -- Guilford College Athletic Director Marion Kirby announced the appointment of Tom Palombo as the Quakers' head men's basketball coach Wednesday afternoon at a press conference in Guilford's Hege Library. Palombo has never suffered a losing record in his combined 13 years of head basketball coaching experience.

Palombo moves 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 238-105 in 13 seasons with five NCAA Tournament berths. 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.

The announcement concludes a hectic summer at Guilford in which Kirby led national searches to fill four head-coaching positions in two months. Butch Estes resigned the head men's basketball position May 6 after four years to take the same job at Miami-Dade Community College. He went 43-58 in four seasons at Guilford and helped restore a program that slumped to 3-21 in 1998-99.

The Quakers' men finished 12-14 in 2002-03 and expect all but two letter winners back for the coming season.

The Tom Palombo File

Name: Thomas John "Tom" Palombo

Born: October 5, 1966, in Virginia Beach, VA

Family: Wife, Amy, daughters Kylee (3) and Reagan (1)

Bayside High School, 1985

Virginia Wesleyan College, B.A. in communications/journalism, 1989

Old Dominion University, M.S. in education, 1991

Bayside High School - Baseball, Basketball, 1982-85

Virginia Wesleyan College - Basketball (1985-89), Baseball (1987-88)

1991-94 - head women's coach, Virginia Wesleyan College, Virginia Beach, VA

1994-97 - head women's coach, Defiance College, Defiance, OH

1997-03 - head men's coach, Defiance College, Defiance, OH

Virginia Wesleyan (women) - 60-35, four years (.632)

Defiance (women) - 78-7, three years (.918)

Defiance (men) - 100-63, six years (.613)

Overall - 238-105, 13 years (.694)

1992 - Old Dominion Athletic Conference Women's Basketball Coach of the Year

1995 - Association of Mideast Colleges Women's Basketball Coach of the Year

1996 - D3News NCAA Division III Coach of the Year

1997 - Women's Basketball Coaches Association District Coach of the Year