Rider's Tommy Dempsey Named 2008 The Rock MAAC Coach of the Year
MAAC Sports
Albany, N.Y. Rider University men’s basketball coach Tommy Dempsey has been selected as the 2008 The Rock MAAC Coach of the Year, by his peers the MAAC’s head coaches.
Dempsey, the youngest active head coach in Division I with 100 college coaching victories, finished the 2006-07 season with twice as many victories as the previous year when he served on an interim basis. He currently owns a career head coaching record of 125-36 and a 45-44 mark at Rider.
Dempsey, in his third season as head coach of the Broncs, served as an assistant coach at the Lawrenceville, N.J. school from 2003-2005. He was interim head coach for the 2005-06 season, and then officially took over the reigns prior to the 2006-07 season.
As a head coach prior to Rider, Dempsey took two different institutions to the NJCAA Final Four. In three years as head coach on the junior college level, he compiled an 88-12 record, including a perfect 46-0 record at home, and was twice a finalist for National Coach of the Year honors.
At Lackawanna College, Dempsey reached the Division II National Title Game in 2003, and was the Region 19 and District 9 Coach of the Year, taking a team that was not in the preseason top 40 and finishing National Runner-Up with a school-record 33 wins.
In 2001 and 2002, Dempsey was the Region 19 and District 6 Coach of the Year at Keystone College. He took Keystone College to the 2002 Division III Final Four with a school-record 29 wins. Dempsey took over an 11-12 team and went 55-8 over the next two seasons and reached the NJCAA Division III National Tournament, earning Eastern Pennsylvania College Coach of the Year honors in 2001.
Dempsey began his head coaching career at age 24 at Wyoming Seminary Preparatory School in Kingston, Pa., in 1999. He is a former assistant coach to Frank Marcinek at Susquehanna University, where he was a former player. Dempsey was a three-year letter-winner in basketball and team captain in 1996-97 at Susquehanna.