After an extensive nation-wide search, the City College of New York Athletic Department chose Tom Green to lead its men’s basketball program for the upcoming 2011-2012 season and into the future. Green, who brings a plethora of coaching accomplishments and accolades with him to City College, will be expected to turn around a program that is searching for its first CUNY conference championship since winning the crown back in 2003.
“Tom Green’s passion and appreciation for coaching basketball is evident by the way he recruits, prepares for the season, and deals with the numerous responsibilities that come with the territory of guiding student-athletes and assisting them to become successful on the basketball court and in the classroom,” Director of Athletics Jackee Meadow said in a statement early on Tuesday morning. “On behalf of our College Administration and all of our staff here in the CCNY Athletic Department, we would like to welcome Tom into our family. We are eager to see him get to work to revitalize our men’s basketball program and enhance the student-athletes overall experience at CCNY.”
Green’s resume includes a long list of accomplishments, primarily from his time as the head coach at Farleigh Dickinson University. There, he served as the head coach for 26 years, from 1983 through 2009. He became the winningest coach in the institution’s history, while also staking claim to being the winningest coach in NEC history. Also during his long tenure there, he helped produce a total of seven 20-win seasons, and took the Knights to four NCAA Division I National tournaments. Now at City College, Mr. Green will be looking to turn the men’s basketball program around.
“I am very excited for the opportunity to come to City College and have a positive impact on the men’s basketball team and the CCNY campus,” Green said. “There are many transitional plans that are taking place at CCNY, and I’m thrilled that I’m going a part of the program. The staff is filled with great people, and I’m energized to getting started.”
Prior to his days establishing himself as a household name at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Green spent seven years as an assistant coach at Tulane University from 1976-1983. There, he coach NIT squads in 1982 and 1983. Prior to that, he was an assistant coach at Syracuse University for four seasons from 1972 through 1976, and saw four teams qualify for the NCAA tournament. During the 1974-1975 season, Syracuse finished the campaign 23-9 and made it all the way to the Final Four. It was only the second time in the school’s history that the squad had advanced past the second round. Green’s first major coaching stint was when he was an assistant coach at Drew University during the 1971-1972 season.
In all, Green’s coaching tenure has seen him be a part of eight teams that qualified for the NCAA Tournament, including four squads that played in the NIT Tournament. The Brockway, Pennsylvania native has been named Coach of the Year during his career by five different organizations, including the NIT, the MBWA, the Northeast Conference, the New Jersey Sports Writers and the New Jersey Coaches Association.
The upcoming men’s basketball season at the City College of New York promises to be a very exciting one because of the style of play that Mr. Green likes to preach.
“Offensively, we will outshoot and outscore our opponents, while defensively I like my teams to challenge every shot,” the coach said. “I want my teams to be aggressive defensively and be well-versed in a variety of zone defenses. Basically, we want to be up-tempo and fast break on the offensive side of the ball, and we want to be unpredictable on the defensive end. We want to make it very difficult for opposing schools to prepare for us. That’s our goal.”
Also, when it comes to the term “student-athlete”, Green very much believes that those two words complement each other, and success in the classroom and dedication to each student-athletes’ respective area of study is a non-negotiable when it comes to being a member of his team.
“My goal is to graduate 100 percent of my student-athletes,” Green said. “I want athletes that are serious about getting a degree. I feel that it is my responsibility to provide an atmosphere conducive to study, and I, along with our coaching and support staff, will closely monitor each student’s academic progress from day one.”
Mr. Green has been chosen as the man to lead City College’s men’s basketball team into the future. And it’s clear – based on the philosophy and vision that the former FDU head coach has for the Beavers – a new era in CCNY basketball has begun.