Sept. 13, 2004
The New England Basketball Hall of Fame announced its 2004 Special Category Awards and George Mason University Assistant Vice President and Athletic Director Tom O'Connor will be presented the Pathfinder Award. The Hall of Fame Team inductions, the newly created Scholar-Athlete category winners, Coach of the Year Award winners will also be honored on September 24 in the Ryan Center on the campus of the University of Rhode Island as part of the Hall of Fame Dinner/Induction Ceremony.
The Pathfinder award is presented annually to an individual who has contributed significantly to basketball in New England, and who has gone on to outstanding accomplishments in basketball on a national scale. O'Connor will be honored along with Washington & Lee Athletic Director Mike Walsh and ESPN executive Len Deluca.
O'Connor's involvement and contributions in basketball are outstanding at the NCAA level. He recently was selected to the prominent 10-member NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship Committee, beginning his five-year term in September 2004. O'Connor is the first representative in the Colonial Athletic Association's 19-year history to be appointed to the committee, which has control, direction and supervision of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship. He currently is a member of the Division I Strategic Planning Committee and has been appointed to the Selection Review Committee. He finished a term as a member of the NCAA Men's Basketball Rules Committee, 1997-2003. He recently completed his term on the prestigious Management Council. He also is a member of the Executive Council of the NACDA Division I-AAA Athletic Directors Association.
At George Mason University, O'Connor hired head coach Jim Larranaga in 1997 to rebuild a basketball program that had fallen into disarray. The program was quickly turned around winning the CAA title and a berth into the NCAA Tournament in only Larranaga's second season at the helm. Mason has maintained that level of success earning four postseason berths in seven seasons, two NCAA bids and two NIT Invitations.
The Mason women's basketball team has had a similar blueprint to success behind seven-year head coach Debbie Taneyhill. O'Connor hired the 1992 George Mason graduate and standout point guard after she served as interim coach midway through the 1997-98 season. She guided the Patriots to their first-ever postseason appearance, a women's NIT Invitation in 2001 and also earned CAA Coach of the Year honors. The Patriots earned their second women's NIT Invitation last season.
O'Connor previously served as athletic director at Loyola (MD) College (1976-86), at Santa Clara University (1986-92) and at St. Bonaventure University (1992-94). He was also the head basketball coach at Dartmouth College (1972-74) and at Loyola (1974-76), and his age of 25 when he became head coach at Dartmouth ranks him as the sixth-youngest head coach to ever take over a NCAA Division I program. He
began in college coaching when head coach George Blaney hired him as an assistant coach at Dartmouth and served in that capacity for two years before he took the helm in 1972. O'Connor first coaching position was at Clinton High School in Clinton, Mass. He spent two seasons as coach, which included a Midland League Championship his second year.
As the Athletic Director at St. Bonaventure, O'Connor hired Jim Baron to bring the Bonnies back to respectability. Baron went on to lead the Bonnies basketball team to four postseason appearances in nine years. Coach Baron did the same thing when he inherited a Rhode Island program a few years ago and in his second season advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NIT in 2003 and earned Atlantic-10 Coach of the Year honors.
A native of Union City, NJ, the 57-year-old O'Connor earned a B.A. degree in 1968 from Assumption (MA) College, where he was a four-year basketball letterwinner on four NCAA Tournament teams. He was a 1,000 point scorer for the Greyhounds and earned All New England Team status. He also is a member of the Assumption College Athletic Hall of Fame.
Many of O'Connor's basketball teams have reached regional and national heights. The Santa Clara women's basketball team won the women's NIT in 1991. The school also earned NCAA bids in men's and women's basketball.
O'Connor's list of memberships to basketball affiliations includes the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Executive Council, the Eastern College Basketball Association (ECBA) Executive Committee, and a member of the NABC for 32 years.
