A 2025 inductee into the Franklin & Marshall Hall of Fame, Andy Tompos ’69 announced his retirement as head coach following the 2024-25 season, but continues to lend his vast knowledge and expertise of the game as the Diplomats’ volunteer assistant coach.
Tompos took over as his alma mater’s head coach during the 2008-09 academic year and promptly led the Diplomats to the 2009 Centennial Conference Championship. That championship was only a sign of things to come as Tompos’ Franklin & Marshall teams captured 12 conference championships during his time as head coach.
Advancing to the NCAA Division III Team Championships during each of those championship-winning seasons, Franklin & Marshall accomplished its best national tournament finish under Tompos’ watch with a 12th-place showing at the 2016 national championship. The team's record-breaking 2016 NCAA performance was especially memorable as Stephen Colodny ’17 and Brad Lankler ’17 placed fourth and sixth, respectively, in the final individual standings.
Franklin & Marshall is the only school in Centennial Conference history to win five consecutive team championships. Tompos accomplished that feat when F&M won the 2014 through 2018 conference titles. He has been voted by his peers as the Centennial Conference Coach of the Year on nine different occasions since the award was first presented following the 2010 season. Tompos has further been recognized as the Mid-Atlantic Region Coach of the Year on three occasions, most recently earning that distinction following the 2022 season.
Tompos’ impact on Franklin & Marshall's success is found all over the Centennial Conference record books. Each of the top four team performances among any school at the Centennial Conference Championships were completed under his guidance, highlighted by the 2023 championship team setting the conference record with a three-round score of 859 strokes. In total, 11 of the 16 lowest team rounds in conference history have been posted by Tompos’ squads. That includes the conference record team score of 280 which the Diplomats set during the first round of the 2022 George Cangero Invitational.
F&M's continued dominance has consistently placed the Diplomats at the top of the conference standings, but they continue to break records as the team most recently reset its own conference scoring record by averaging a team score of 295.1 strokes per round the 2023-24 campaign. That came just one year after F&M originally broke the conference record by averaging 296.8 strokes during the 2022-23 campaign. The Diplomats further own the conference record for most team titles in a single academic year after capturing nine different tournament titles during the 2015-16 season.
Individually, Tompos has coached the Centennial Conference Championship medalist on nine occasions while leading 28 All-CC selections. That group includes nine All-Americans, highlighted by Lankler who became the program's first three-time All-American. With Tompos by his side, Lankler set the Centennial Conference single-season scoring record with an average of 72.9 strokes per round during the 2015 season. That mark stood for nearly a decade before another Tompos pupil – Roy Anderson ’25 – broke that record with a scoring average of 72.0 during the 2023-24 season.
Prior to taking over as head coach of the Diplomats, Tompos was officially named as the team's assistant coach before the start of the 2002 season after serving multiple years as a volunteer assistant. Tompos certainly had a standout playing career in his own right as he was the top player in the Diplomats’ lineup as a captain in 1969 and was named captain emeritus following his graduation from the College to recognize his contributions to the program. In addition to his success at Franklin & Marshall, Tompos has won more than 25 golf tournaments – including the 1998 Lancaster Amateur, the 2000 Lancaster Senior Amateur, and the 2007 and 2008 Pennsylvania State Senior Publinks Amateur. He has also been a participant in the USGA Senior Amateur (2003), National Senior Hall of Fame (2004), North-South Senior Amateur at Pinehurst (2004-18), and Susquehanna Senior Amateur.
Outside of his highly successful coaching and playing career, Tompos used his mathematics degree from Franklin & Marshall and master's degree from Millersville University to complete a highly successful 33-year professional career in real estate where he published Analyzing Investment Properties. Tompos also gave back to college students as a math professor at Stevens College of Technology for 37 years (1973-10) and was an IT Specialist from 2010-19. During those same years, he also served as an adjunct professor at both Millersville and Penn State.
