Tom Penders

Tom Penders

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.

Coaching career

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.

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 coach Mike 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, a phonecard scandal involving his son, who was an assistant coach, as well as star guard Sir Valiant Brown leaving after his sophomore year for the NBA because he wouldn't qualify to play the next season for academic reasons. 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. 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 rich payout (in the area of $1M) he refused to comment. "

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

School	Season	Record		Postseason
		Overall	Conference
Tufts	1971-1972	12-8	0-0
Tufts	1972-1973	22-4	0-0
Tufts	1973-1974	20-6	0-0
Columbia	1974-1975	4-22	0-0
Columbia	1975-1976	8-17	0-0
Columbia	1976-1977	16-10	0-0
Columbia	1977-1978	15-11	0-0
Fordham	1978-1979	7-22	0-0
Fordham	1979-1980	11-17	0-0
Fordham	1980-1981	19-9	0-0	NIT
Fordham	1981-1982	18-11	0-0	NIT
Fordham	1982-1983	19-11	0-0	NIT
Fordham	1983-1984	19-15	0-0	NIT
Fordham	1984-1985	19-12	0-0	NIT
Fordham	1985-1986	13-17	0-0
Rhode Island	1986-1987	20-10	0-0	NIT
Rhode Island	1987-1988	28-7	0-0	NCAA Sweet Sixteen
Texas	1988-1989	25-9	0-0	NCAA Second Round
Texas	1989-1990	24-9	0-0	NCAA Elite Eight
Texas	1990-1991	23-9	0-0	NCAA Second Round
Texas	1991-1992	23-12	0-0	NCAA Tournament
Texas	1992-1993	11-17	0-0
Texas	1993-1994	26-8	0-0	NCAA Second Round
Texas	1994-1995	23-7	0-0	NCAA Second Round
Texas	1995-1996	21-10	10-4	NCAA Second Round
Texas	1996-1997	18-12	11-6	NCAA Sweet Sixteen
Texas	1997-1998	14-17	6-10
George Washington	1998-1999	20-9	13-3	NCAA Tournament
George Washington	1999-2000	15-15	9-7
George Washington	2000-2001	14-18	6-10
Houston	2004-2005	18-14	9-7	NIT First Round
Houston	2005-2006	21-10	9-5	NIT Second Round
Houston	2006-2007	18-15	10-6