Everything you need to know about Jesse DeLoof, Guilford College’s new men’s basketball coach, can be learned over a game of Uno. Fair warning: it might get heated.

Raised on a horse farm in central Pennsylvania, Jesse grew up steeped in competition. His parents showed horses for a living and traveled the country chasing ribbons and trophies. Eventually, those trophies filled the house — and shaped the boy.

Even in Uno. No cards were thrown, no tables were tossed, but Jesse says the games were intense.“Winning and losing was a big part of growing up in my house,” he says. “I really enjoyed that – just loved the competition.”

That instinct never left. “I’m sorry,” he says, “but I don’t like to lose. That’s the energy I bring to any kind of competition.”

This week, that energy heads north to Fredericksburg, Va., where Jesse will coach his first game for Guilford on Friday against 15th-ranked Mary Washington University.

For someone so wired to win, you might expect some opening-night nerves. Not so. Just like in Uno, Jesse keeps his cards close to his chest. He’s already playing down the first game. “Players and coaches tend to make it a bigger deal than it probably is,” he says. “Two months from now we’ll look back and think, ‘Who did we even play in that first one?’ But that’s natural. You just try to keep it in perspective.”

Filling big shoes

For a first-year head coach stepping into one of Division III’s proudest programs — three Final Fours under Tom Palombo, 22 years of consistency, a culture built on work and winning — perspective is everything.

Tom resigned in the spring to become associate head coach at Longwood University (Va.), leaving behind an office and a gym lined with ODAC trophies and banners. Coincidentally, he’ll be on campus Saturday to be inducted to the Guilford Athletics Hall of Fame.

Jesse, who came to Guilford from Pitt-Bradford, where he led the Panthers to a 24-4 season, won the conference and tournament regular season and tournament titles, and won the school's first-ever NCAA Tournament game. He moved into his new office — Tom's old office — this summer. His name’s on the wall outside but, inside, the space still feels borrowed. There are nails in the wall where Tom’s six coaching awards once hung. Jesse used one to hang his lone award. The other five nails wait. Never have five naked nails felt so intimidating, but Jesse wants that pressure, that expectation of things greater. 

“You can’t help but feel that responsibility and the impact he had here,” Jesse says. “But I wanted that – a job with a standard and a really high ceiling.”

He’s not flying solo. Tom still checks in now and then. “Just to see how I’m doing,” Jesse says. “He doesn’t call with advice, just to check in and see if he can help. I’d be crazy not to pick his brain.”

Providing energy and new direction

The players see the new direction. Or, at least, the ones still around do. Senior guard Dawson Edwards ’24 MBA 25 and Gabe Proctor ’26 are the only returning Quakers who logged serious minutes last season. Dawson remembers his first meeting with the new coach.

“From the first moment that we met him, he was really excited about coming to Guilford,” Dawson says. “He kind of just had this – we’ll use the word excitement — about him. He knows what we’ve had going on at Guilford for the past three years that I’ve been here and the past however many years of winning. He wants a piece of that.”

Dawson, who is pursuing a masters in International Sport Management to go with his MBA, says it didn’t take long for the team to pick up Jesse’s energy. “He’s very personable,” Dawson says. “That’s the thing that really stands out to us. He’s a young coach who gets on the guys and is extremely hands-on. That’s something all the guys appreciated from the get-go.”

Dawson also caught something else. “The one thing he said when he first got here is he’s used to the blue-collar style of things, which means hard work.”

And when comparing his old and current coaches, Dawson puts it plainly. “They’re both on the same track as far as having a practice plan and having an agenda for winning,” he says. “The difference is we used to be mainly a defensive powerhouse, and we used to just play (defense) in the half court.”

That’s changing under Jesse, who’s extending that half-court pressure the length of the court. “That’s our bread and butter,” Dawson says. “We’re going to guard teams 94 feet the whole game. It’s a completely new level of physicality, and ultimately it’s more testing on your mind.”

Body, too. The adjustment hasn’t been easy for the players. “That one play that you don’t want to sprint back, now Jesse’s yelling at you, ‘Sprint back!’ But it’s really good. It teaches us to push ourselves.”

That style — and that voice — get their first test Friday night in Fredericksburg.

Jesse knows better than to read too much into one game. “After the game, we’ll watch film and get back to even,” he says. “If we play great, we’re not the best team in the world. If we play poorly, we’re not the worst. It’s just the first step. We’re going to win here, but first, we’re going to play harder than everybody else.”