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08/15/2019 12:00 AMThe North Haven girls’ basketball team built the foundation last year. Now, new Head Coach Tom Blake is looking to turn the Indians into perennial contenders.
Last winter, North Haven earned its first State Tournament berth since 2015 and then made good on the bid by winning its first-round game. A few weeks ago, Tom was named the head coach of the Indians. An experienced basketball mind, Tom inherits a youthful and talented roster and has his sights set on improving upon the existing groundwork, rather than tearing things down and starting from scratch.
“I just want to go up from [last year]. I don’t want to rebuild or anything like that,” Tom says. “[Former coach Ray Degnan] has done a nice job. I like some of the things he has done that the girls have told me. I’m just going to add on to that. I don’t want to say how many wins we will have, but I think we will be better, because he gave those younger kids experience.”
North Haven finished with a regular-season record of 7-13 on its way to qualifying for the Class L State Tournament in the 2018-’19 season. As the No. 30 seed, the Indians knocked off 3rd-seeded Bullard-Havens in the first round of the bracket. North Haven graduated just one senior from the team. Consequently, Tom has a crop of playoff-tested athletes whom he’s aiming to take the next level.
Tom’s coaching career began in the 1980s at Cheshire Academy, where he developed a program that advanced to the New England Class B championship game. Since then, Tom has made several stops at the collegiate level. He served as an assistant coach at Fairfield and Manhattan, was the head coach for the men’s basketball team at Wheaton College, and also helped the men’s team at Quinnipiac transition from Division II to Division I. On top of that, Tom was an assistant coach for the women’s basketball teams at Quinnipiac, Northeastern, and Rhode Island. Most recently, he coached the team at Lauralton Hall on an interim basis.
North Haven Athletic Director Steve Blumenthal feels pleased to have such an experienced and energetic coach like Tom in the fold for the long haul.
“He definitely has energy. He exudes it,” says Blumenthal. “We have got the same feelings about developing the program. We were concerned with the turnover in other programs. We don’t want someone who is going to be here a year or two and use our program as a stepping stone to another job. He is here to develop. He doesn’t want to rebuild, because we are on the verge of exploding.”
Tom feels that player development will be a critical factor in guiding North Haven to new heights. Next year’s roster will feature three seniors and seven juniors who contributed to the team’s playoff berth last season. While he hasn’t been able to run any practices yet, Tom already has a clear vision about what he wants to achieve.
“The kids are going to work hard. I’m going to make sure of that. We don’t waste time in practice,” Tom says. “Probably 50 percent of my time in the beginning will be player development. A lot of coaches put in plays, putting in defenses, and I’m going to work on player development, which gets me to where I need to be quicker.”
Tom has shaped his core philosophies as a result of coaching the game for so many years. Tom will emphasize the X’s and O’s of the motion offense, as well as man-to-man defensive principles, but nothing will be as important as transparency.
“Just as much what they’re not doing right, they need to know what they’re doing right, so they can keep doing it,” says Tom.
North Haven’s fans should enjoy the modern style of basketball that Tom plans to employ. With an emphasis on spacing the floor and pace, the Indians are expected to have several different players make key contributions on the court.
“I want to play a little up-tempo. I do want to press. You can’t play the same five kids if you’re going to press,” Tom says. “There might be kids who are not in the top five, but they’re going to play.”
A Milford resident, Tom has been married to his wife Bobbi for 38 years. The couple has two sons: Kevin, 32, and Brian, 27. Tom teaches science and religion at the Assumption Catholic School in Fairfield.
As he takes the reins in North Haven, Tom knows there is a lot of work that needs to be done across all levels in order to get the Indians where he wants them to be.
“I found out there was a feeder youth program. That’s what you are looking for—something where you can see the younger kids and they can see you,” says Tom. “I just think it has everything. It is almost like a little college program. It has a lot of people doing a lot of things and they all want to see success.”