Dead Coach Walking: Tom Penders Surviving and Thriving in College Hoops

Renowned college basketball coach Tom Penders revisits his successful, if tumultuous, career in a new autobiography Dead Coach Walking: Tom Penders Surviving and Thriving in College Hoops. One of the winningest head coaches in NCAA Division I basketball history, Penders reflects on four decades steering programs at 7 universities—Tufts, Columbia, Fordham, Rhode Island, Texas, George Washington and Houston. As he lifted them from depths of “death row” to winning glory, he enhanced his reputation as “Turnaround Tom.” Penders achieved success with distinction: he has coached more NCAA Division I basketball programs than any coach in history and has taken four different schools to the Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. He also retired in 2010 ranked 4th total among active coaches in games-coached, trailing only Connecticut’s Jim Calhoun, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim. In Dead Coach Walking, Penders talks about the teams he led and how he dealt with athletic directors, conference commissioners, assistants, AAU coaches, the NABC and the NCAA. The book also goes behind the scenes, revealing game strategies, coaching personalities, locker room stories, and experiences on the recruiting trail. Penders’ perspective, while sometimes controversial, is riveting not to mention entertaining. Dead Coach Walking is truly as unique, quirky, and remarkable as its subject.