Sport(s) Football Position(s) Defensive lineman Spouse Joan Gil Record 66–69 1986 Penn (GA) Titles Head coach | 1982–1985 Penn Name Tom Gilmore Conference Patriot League 1986 BC Lions Role American Football coach | |
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Born September 10, 1964 (age 59) ( 1964-09-10 ) Education University of Pennsylvania Team Holy Cross Crusaders football Children Sarah Gil, John Gil | ||
Tom Gilmore (born September 25, 1964) is an American football coach and former player. He is currently the head coach at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, a position he had held since the 2004 season.
Gilmore is second on the all-time coaching wins list at Holy Cross. He took over a program that suffered 10 losing seasons in the previous 11 years and turned in a winning season in just his second year, including a win over the #10 ranked Lehigh, his previous coaching stop. His teams progressively improved, just narrowly missing three championships by a total of 5 points before claiming Patriot League title in 2009. That 2009 team lost a close match-up with eventual national champion Villanova in the national playoffs and finished with a #14 national ranking. He has coached winning teams in eight of his 12 seasons.
Gilmore is an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania and a former defensive lineman on the Penn Quakers football team. Gilmore also played one summer for the British Columbia Lions of the Canadian Football League and one summer for the New York Knights of the Arena Football League. Prior to taking the head coaching position at Holy Cross, Gilmore served as an assistant at Penn, Columbia University, Dartmouth College and Lehigh University.
Gilmore was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Irish-born parents; Jack Gilmore & Sarah "Sadie" (Boyce) Gilmore. He has older brothers John and Jim (Ohio State & NFL player) & two younger siblings, Mike (Lycoming College Athletic Hall of Fame) and sister Mary Ann (LaSalle College). He attended St Bartholomew Parish grade school and then Northeast Catholic High School for Boys. At North, he was selected to the All-Catholic League teams in three separate sports - football, wrestling and track. He graduated in 1982 from North Catholic with high honors and received the school's most prestigious award, the Provincial's Medal of Honor. He was inducted into the North Catholic Alumni Hall of Fame in 2014, Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2009 and Football Hall of Fame in 2014.
As a football player at the University of Pennsylvania, he was a 4-time Ivy league Champion. He was named team captain in 1985 and was a 3-time All-Ivy League selection as a defensive lineman. He established new school career records for quarterback sacks and tackles for loss and received numerous team awards including the George Munger Award (Team MVP) and the Chuck Bednarik Award (Top Lineman). As a senior, he was named the Ivy League Player of the Year (Asa S. Bushnell Award), one of only two linemen to ever win the award before it was divided into two awards for Offense and Defense in 2012.
An Academic All-American at the University of Pennsylvania, Gilmore graduated in 1986 with a bachelor's degree in computer mathematics. He received the Class of 1917 Award as Penn's top male Scholar-Athlete at graduation. He was also selected as one of the 12 members of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame Scholar-Athlete Team in December, 1985. He was then named to the University of Pennsylvania Football All-Century Team in 2000 and was inducted into the Penn Athletics Hall of Fame in 2017.