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Gene Thompson

Panelist: Preserving the HBCU Tennis Legacy

Gene Thompson has served as head Men’s Tennis Coach since 2005. Thompson has guided the Trojans to 96 wins and 40 losses in eight seasons and 57 wins and 27 loses in CIAA with one CIAA Runner-Up in 2009; A NCAA at Large Bid 2009; 4- 3rd place finishes in the post season play and reaching the Semis-Finals in 2010 and 2011 in the CIAA Spring Championships. His teams have won 4 consecutive CIAA Divisional Championships. He has coached seven all conference players and four finalists.

He has assisted the Women’s Basketball team for the past 5 years where they were 79-58. On January 20th, 2011 he was appointed the Interim Head Men’s Basketball Coach. They had lost 13 games in a row and was 0-2 in the CIAA Northern Division. He turn things around, finishing in 4th place in the Northern Division going 5-5 in the regular season and 5-7 overall. Thompson coached the Men’s and Women’s tennis teams at Lincoln University part-time for 10 years before coming to Virginia State University in January 2005.

Before coming to VSU, Coach Thompson coached in Delaware with stops in Virginia and North Carolina, where his high school basketball coaching record was 489 wins and 227 loses. He coached football (A state title in 1971); Track & Field (A state title in 1995); and tennis. He was name State Coach of the Year in Basketball, Tennis, and Track & Field. He was also named Conference Basketball Coach of the Year nine times. He has worked the fame Five Star Basketball Camp for over 30 years along side coaches like Hubbie Brown, Rick Pitino, and John Calipari. He coach Christian Lattner, Grant Hill, Monte Williams, and Vince Carter on his camp teams. The Five Star Camp is where all the great ones attend.


A native of Newport News, Virginia, Thompson graduated from Carver High School and attended Compton College and graduate from Elizabeth City State University, BS. He received his Masters degree from Virginia State University.

Thompson is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity.

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