Tom Brennan (born May 2, 1949) is a

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

and

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

sportscaster and former men's

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

head coach A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manager", as in assoc ...

at the

University of Vermont The University of Vermont (UVM), officially the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Burlington, Vermont. It was founded in 1791 and is amon ...

from 1986 to 2005.

Coaching career

Raised in

Phillipsburg, New Jersey Phillipsburg is a town located along the Delaware River in Warren County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is located across the river directly east from Easton, Pennsylvania. Phillipsburg is the most populous municipality in Warren County w ...

, Brennan graduated as the all-time leading scorer at

Phillipsburg Catholic High School Phillipsburg Catholic High School was a parochial high school in Phillipsburg, New Jersey. It was operated by the Roman Catholic parish of Saints Philip and James Church in Phillipsburg. History The school originally opened in 1923 as Sts. Phil ...

. Brennan graduated from the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

in 1971, where, as a senior, he received the men's basketball team leadership award. He began his coaching after graduating in the fall of 1971 as a graduate assistant at Georgia under Ken Rosemond. Sandwiched around a year as head basketball and baseball coach at Division III

Fairleigh Dickinson University Fairleigh Dickinson University is a private university with its main campuses in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Founded in 1942, Fairleigh Dickinson University currently offers more than 100 degree programs to its students. In addition to its tw ...

Madison, New Jersey Madison is a borough in Morris County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 16,937. Located along the Morris & Essex Lines, it is noted for Madison's historic railroad station becoming one ...

, Brennan was an assistant under college basketball coaches

Rollie Massimino Roland Vincent Massimino (November 13, 1934 – August 30, 2017) was an American basketball coach. He served as the head men's basketball coach at Stony Brook University (1969–1971), Villanova University (1973–1992), the University of Nevada, L ...

at Villanova,

Bill Raftery William Joseph Raftery (born April 19, 1943) is an American basketball analyst and former college basketball coach. High school and college years Raftery attended Saint Cecilia High School in Kearny, New Jersey, where he starred in basketball an ...

Seton Hall Seton Hall University (SHU) is a private Catholic research university in South Orange, New Jersey. Founded in 1856 by then-Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley and named after his aunt, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Seton Hall is the oldest diocesa ...

and

Bruce Parkhill Bruce Parkhill (born June 16, 1949) is a former head college men's basketball coach whose stops included William & Mary (1977–1983) and Penn State (1983–1995). His 1990–91 Nittany Lions won the Atlantic 10 Conference Tournament and stunne ...

at William & Mary. In 1982, he was named head coach at

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

where he crafted a four-year record of 46–58, including back-to-back seasons of 14–12 and 13–13. At Yale, he coached players such as Earl "Butch" Graves and NBA veteran

Chris Dudley Christen Guilford Dudley (born February 22, 1965) is an American former professional basketball player and politician. He played 886 games across 16 seasons in the NBA for the Cleveland Cavaliers, New Jersey Nets, Portland Trail Blazers, New ...

. In 19 years at Vermont, Brennan led the Catamounts to four 20+ win seasons, three America East championships and UVM's first three NCAA Tournament appearances, including the school's first NCAA Tournament win over BIG EAST champion Syracuse in 2005. Brennan is one of two coaches in America East history to lead his team to three consecutive conference titles. Brennan's last four Vermont teams brought unprecedented positive national publicity to the men's basketball program and to the school. During his last season, Vermont became the first and only America East team to sell out every one of its home games at Patrick Gymnasium. During the second half of the 2004–05 season the Catamounts were the subject of five parts of ESPN's critically acclaimed nationally televised series, 'The Season.' UVM's upset also was nominated for an ESPY award in 2005. Standouts that Brennan coached at Vermont include Eddie Benton, the 1996 winner of the Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award given to the nation's top senior less than 6-feet tall, Matt Johnson, Kevin Roberson, Trevor Gaines, T.J. Sorrentine and

Taylor Coppenrath Taylor Burton Coppenrath (born November 8, 1981) is an American former professional basketball player. Early life Coppenrath went to high school at St. Johnsbury Academy where he did not play for the varsity basketball team until his junior year. ...

, a finalist in 2005 for both the John Wooden and James Naismith National Player of the Year Awards, the first and only America East player to be on a final ballot for National Player of the Year.

Broadcast career

During his coaching career, Brennan co-hosted a morning radio show in

Burlington, Vermont Burlington is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the seat of Chittenden County. It is located south of the Canada–United States border and south of Montreal. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the population was 44,743. It ...

called "Corm and the Coach," with radio personality Steve Cormier, which began on WIZN-FM 106.7 FM in 1992. In 1998, the pair moved to WCVP-FM 101.3 and WCVR-FM 102.1 until July 2008, when Brennan decided to retire from his position as morning radio personality. In November 2009, Brennan and Cormier teamed up again to bring "Corm and the Coach" briefly back on the air on 107.1 WNMR before moving to television on WCAXtra TV and on the internet on NSN.net until 2011. Brennan delivers ''

Saturday Night Live ''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves a ...

''-style sports reports and his thoughts on basketball, politics, entertainment, local news and psychology. The Coach's repertoire also included live, pre-dawn wake-up calls to his players and coaching colleagues. In the 2003 and 2004 off-seasons, he also was a co-host on several

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

national radio shows. After his retirement from coaching in 2005, Brennan joined

working as a college basketball studio analyst as well as doing color commentary across the ESPN family of networks. He worked at ESPN until 2009. In December 2010, Brennan joined

Sirius XM Radio Sirius XM Holdings Inc. is an American broadcasting company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City that provides satellite radio and online radio services operating in the United States. It was formed by the 2008 merger of Sirius Sat ...

as a co-host of College Basketball Today that airs during the college hoops season. Brennan also does radio commentary for college basketball on

Westwood One Westwood One is an American radio network There are two types of radio network currently in use around the world: the one-to-many (simplex communication) broadcast network commonly used for public information and mass-media entertainment, and ...

, now known as Dial Global Sports, as well as television work for

NBC Sports Network NBCSN was an American sports television channel owned by the NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It originally launched on July 1, 1995, as the Outdoor Life Network (OLN), which was dedicated to programming prim ...

, appearing as a college basketball analyst on

NBC SportsTalk ''NBC SportsTalk'' was a daily sports talk show on American television channel NBCSN named after the various talk sites on the NBCSports.com. It was the flagship show for the network.Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

in the first round of the 2005 NCAA tournamentVermont Catamounts vs. Syracuse Orange – Recap – March 18, 2005 – ESPN
* 2005 America East ChampionsUVM Men's Basketball Record Book
. * 2004 America East Champions * 2003 America East Champions * 2002 America East Regular Season Champions * 1992 America East Coach of the Year * 1998 America East Coach of the Year * 2002 America East Coach of the Year * 1992 NABC District I (New England) Coach of the Year * 2002 NABC District I (New England) Coach of the Year * 2005 New Jersey Sportswriters National Coach of the Year * All-Time Leader in Games Coached At Vermont * All-Time Leader in Victories At Vermont

Family

Brennan and his wife, Lynn reside on

Lake Champlain , native_name_lang = , image = Champlainmap.svg , caption = Lake Champlain-River Richelieu watershed , image_bathymetry = , caption_bathymetry = , location = New York/Vermont in the United States; and Quebec in Canada , coords = , type = , ...

Colchester, Vermont Colchester is a town in Chittenden County, Vermont, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of Colchester was 17,524. It is the fourth-most populous municipality and second-most populous town in the state of Vermont. Colchester bor ...

. He has two children: Kelly, who graduated from UVM in 1993 and Brian who was a standout guard at Indiana (Pa.) University, which reached the NCAA D-II Elite Eight in 2000. He has four grandchildren; Caleb, Brennan, Ryder, and Jordan.

Head coaching record

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brennan, Tom 1949 births Living people American men's basketball players Basketball coaches from Vermont Basketball coaches from New Jersey Basketball players from New Jersey College men's basketball head coaches in the United States Georgia Bulldogs basketball coaches Georgia Bulldogs basketball players People from Colchester, Vermont People from Phillipsburg, New Jersey Seton Hall Pirates men's basketball coaches Sportspeople from Burlington, Vermont Sportspeople from Warren County, New Jersey Vermont Catamounts men's basketball coaches Villanova Wildcats men's basketball coaches William & Mary Tribe men's basketball coaches Yale Bulldogs men's basketball coaches