By Eric Tosi '03

On Dec. 24, 2003, Tom Gilmore was named the 27th head coach in Holy Cross football history. Prior to arriving in Worcester, Gilmore served as defensive coordinator for four years under Pete Lembo at Lehigh and completed an eight-year tenure as Dartmouth's defensive coordinator. A 1986 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Gilmore was an Academic All-American defensive tackle in 1986; he also garnered Ivy League Player of the Year honors in his senior season. Recently, Eric Tosi '03 had the opportunity to speak with Coach Gilmore about his past, the present, and his future vision for Holy Cross football.

HCM: How did you first become involved in the coaching profession?

Gilmore:I played football for 17 years, so it was part of my life since I was five years old. I was fortunate enough to have great coaches throughout my career, from peewee football on. So, obviously, that had a big influence on my decision to become a coach. I was always drawn to the coaching and teaching professions.

HCM: Were there any mentors or role models who had a significant influence on your playing and coaching careers?

Gilmore: There were so many. I can look to almost every coach I had. I'm probably one of the few people in the world that can say that they have had great coaches throughout their career. I really cannot pick out any coach and say that was not a good football coach or a good person. All the coaches that I had in one way or another had major impacts on my life.

HCM: What was your initial reaction when Holy Cross Athletic Director Richard Regan '76 named you head coach of the Holy Cross football program?

Gilmore: I was really pleased. Holy Cross is a very special place. It is a great academic institution and has a great football tradition. It has always been a place that I've been attracted to. I've been competing against Holy Cross for a number of years now, and I knew quite a bit about the school before I got here. I was very happy about it. It was where I wanted to be. I couldn't think of another place I would want to be more.

HCM: As you know, Holy Cross has a rich football tradition. What does the history of Holy Cross football mean to you?

Gilmore: As you evaluate opportunities throughout your career, a football coach really looks at tradition. One of the reasons I'm so confident that we can get things turned around at Holy Cross is because of the tradition. I look back at my years at Penn. I chose to go to Penn in 1982 at a time when Penn was the second worst team in Division One football. (Penn) had only won three games in the previous three years combined. They were not very successful for a good 15-year period. But when I looked at the facilities and the institution and the tradition in football, they were all really good. It was only the recent years that were not good. And that is the way I look at it at Holy Cross. I really believe the support network is here. These factors, along with the type of institution Holy Cross is, are the key ingredients of a successful football program.

HCM: If you could describe your coaching style in one word, what would it be?

Gilmore: Intense.

HCM: What are some of the challenges a first-year head coach faces when instituting new schemes and a new coaching philosophy to a team?

Gilmore: It's always a challenge because you are trying to introduce an encyclopedia (to the team). But, in an established program with an established coaching staff, you're able to introduce different schemes and different concepts gradually. So the challenge is trying to get a good amount of things introduced but not overloading the circuits of our players in the process. That is probably the biggest challenge, making sure we make the right decisions regarding how much new material the players can handle. The other thing is establishing a great relationship between the coaches and players. It's a matter of getting comfortable with each other and the players learning to gain the confidence that this coaching staff is putting them in the best position to succeed.

HCM: What do the members of your coaching staff - Bob Griffin, Mike Pedone and Chris Pincince on the offensive side of the ball, and Isaac Collins, Bobby Erhardt and Sean Spencer on defense - bring to the table?

Gilmore: Coaching expertise is a big part of the decision I made with each coach. I looked at their backgrounds and their experience, and they all have very impressive resumes. Holy Cross is a very selective academic institution so you need to have people that understand recruiting to an institution like that. But you also have to have a staff that fits well together, a staff that meshes. And I really believe I was able to put that type of staff together.

HCM: Recruiting is obviously one of the most important aspects of building a successful football program. Talk about the recruiting process and some of the difficulties it presents.

Gilmore: It's a real tricky process at a place like Holy Cross and in the Patriot League because you are trying to get the best of both worlds. From a football standpoint you are looking for a Division One-level player, but you also have to have someone with outstanding academic credentials. You need a student-athlete who is very serious about his long-term goals and his career goals and understands how a degree from Holy Cross will help him achieve those goals. But, in the short run is also very serious about playing Division One college football. It's a tough balance. It really becomes a challenge, and you have to do a great job in educating a family what a Holy Cross degree can offer them in the long run, compared to taking a full scholarship at a less prestigious school.

HCM: What is the makeup of a prototypical football player for Tom Gilmore?

Gilmore: Obviously, talent plays a big part in it, but work ethic and intensity have a lot to do with it as well. We are looking for players who are going to be overachievers rather than players who are very talented but don't have the right type of character traits. Character plays a huge part in what we are looking for.

HCM: Recruiting scandals - notably at the University of Colorado - have surfaced in recent months. Do you feel these violations are, or have the potential to be, a widespread problem? Or, do you feel they are merely isolated
incidents?

Gilmore: I would like to believe it is an isolated incident. I hope that it is. I just don't know, to be honest with you, because my whole experience has been in the Patriot and Ivy Leagues, and I really do think we do things differently than the other people. Just look at the way things are done when a recruit is brought on campus at Holy Cross. We don't put them up in the fanciest hotel in town and just wine and dine them. They stay in the residence halls on campus. Our whole focus on a recruiting trip is to inform the recruit and his parents and give them a good feel for what it is like to be a student-athlete at Holy Cross.

HCM: Are there any members of the current Holy Cross football team who have impressed you in recent years?

Gilmore: You have a guy like John O'Neil at quarterback - he is in the most visible position on the team, but he is also a player who won the starting role in last year's preseason camp. He opened the season up against Lehigh and did some really impressive things and continued to impress everyone throughout his second year. We are going to look to him to be a top player for us and to be a leader on the team. He has two other guys in the backfield with him - Steve Silva and Gideon Akande - who are both very good football players and who have both played pivotal roles on the team so far. You look at the offensive production (last season), and those three guys were a big part of it.

HCM: What are your short-term goals for the upcoming season?

Gilmore: We need to be more competitive right off the bat. When you look at Holy Cross' season last year, there were a lot of close football games. We need to be able to win those close games, and once we do that, we will establish the confidence to win a lot more. Sure, I would like to win every game, and we will go in with that approach. There is not a single team that I look at on our schedule that I do not believe we will not have an excellent chance to beat. We just have to make sure that we are outworking people, and, as coaches, we are putting our players in the best position to succeed.

HCM: What will you consider a "successful year" when evaluating your first season at Holy Cross after its completion?

Gilmore: I'm never going to be satisfied until we are undefeated and national champions. That is the kind of attitude I have whether I am at Holy Cross or anywhere else. I really believe we can get to that level at Holy Cross, but we have a lot of work to do. I am not unrealistic about that. As much as I would like to win every game - and I am not going to be satisfied until we do - I am also realistic, and I have been around this game long enough to know how hard it is to do that. I would feel like we had a successful season if we won the majority of our games, and we were darn close in the ones that we did not win. I do not want to just be competitive. I do not want to just say, "Hey, that was an improvement over last year," because I am not going to be satisfied with that. And I hope the players feel the same way.

HCM: Focusing on long-term goals, what is your ideal vision for the future of Holy Cross football?

Gilmore: We want to have the type of season next year where we are competitive in every game and in the position to win them all. The longer-term goals, which hopefully will not be that far down the road, will be to win Patriot League championships, progressing to the national playoffs and then getting all the way to the national championship. And I believe that we can do that.

HCM: Given the past success of Lehigh and, more recently, the success of Colgate, which was the runner-up in the 2003 National Championship game, what are your thoughts on the current state and direction of the Patriot League as a whole?

Gilmore: Everyone in the Patriot League feels very good about what has happened in recent years. But when you look at the point since the League allowed us to start competing in the national playoffs, the league champion has never progressed past the first round. But every year since then, the Patriot League Champion has made it - at least to the final eight in the playoffs, which really says an awful lot about the level of play and competition that the League has gotten to at this point. I think that it is a great level of football. When you look at what Colgate did last year and what Lehigh has been able to do in recent years, there is no reason why Holy Cross cannot be doing those same types of things in the future.

HCM: Lehigh comes to Worcester on Oct. 9. What is that game going to mean to you?

Gilmore: I've been doing this long enough that for the most part it is going to be like every other game that we play. But I think that emotions will be a little higher for, in particular, the Lehigh players and coaches. Because I was with them and worked very hard to help Lehigh achieve the success that they had. And I'd like to think I was a big part of that. I have a lot of close relationships with the players, coaches and administrators.