Thomas E. Eccleston Jr. (1910 – December 20, 2000) was an American

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

, football and

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

coach. Eccleston spent most of his career at Burrillville High School in some capacity but was also the

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 ...

for Providence for eight seasons.

Career

Tom Eccleston graduated from Brown University in 1932, playing four years of soccer, and immediately moved into a teaching position at Burrillville High in Burrillville, Rhode Island. Initially a history teacher and football coach, Eccleston eventually added the coaching duties of baseball and ice hockey to his responsibilities, winning state championships in all three sports. For 23 years Eccleston declined all offers to coach at the collegiate level but finally accepted an offer from Providence in 1956 to alleviate issues that had arisen while coaching his sons. Eccleston became the fifth head coach at Providence (the second since the program restarted after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

) and immediately provided the school with its best record in 1956-57 at 11–7. Eccleston continued to keep the Friars in a strong position for the duration of his tenure, including its transition into

ECAC Hockey ECAC Hockey is one of the six conferences that compete in NCAA Division I college ice hockey, ice hockey. The conference used to be affiliated with the Eastern College Athletic Conference, a consortium of over 300 colleges in the eastern United ...

in the early 1960s, recruiting players like

Lou Lamoriello Louis P. Lamoriello (born October 21, 1942) is an American professional ice hockey executive who is the president of hockey operations and general manager for the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League (NHL). He is also the former ge ...

Bob Bellemore Bob Bellemore (born October 26, 1940) is a known presence in Rhode Island's ice hockey and baseball communities. He is a former standout goaltender and baseball player for Providence College in the National Collegiate Athletic Association. He has a ...

and Larry Kish. In eight seasons behind the bench Eccleston had only one losing season and in 1963-64 gave Providence its first conference title and

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

tournament appearance. The '64 season was the best in Providence's history to that point and very few have topped it. For the outstanding year Eccleston received the Spencer Penrose Award and then stepped down from his position to devote more attention to being the school superintendent in Burrillville. In 1987, after 32 years away, Eccleston returned to Burrillville High to coach the ice hockey team when it was in jeopardy and revived the program. He was enshrined in the Rhode Island Hockey Hall of Fame in 2019.

Head coaching record

References

External links

Tom Eccleston career record at College Hockey News
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Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eccleston, Tom 1910 births 2000 deaths American ice hockey coaches High school baseball coaches in the United States High school football coaches in Rhode Island High school ice hockey coaches in the United States Providence Friars men's ice hockey coaches