Written and Media by Mitchell Hooten.
There are hundreds upon thousands of coaches in the world today, but finding a great coach in the multitude of coaches is hard. One of these great coaches is at Greenville: our very own Tom Broomfield, head throwing coach and head strength and conditioning coach. Coach Broomfield has been the throwing coach for the Greenville Track and Field Team for over 20 years. In that time, he has produced numerous NCCAA All-Americans and 16 NCAA All-Americans in throwing events from the shot put to the weight throw. Not only is Broomfield a great coach, but he is a great mentor and will do anything to help his athletes, from staying with one of his athletes until they got out of surgery to helping an athlete find a job to help get through school.
Coach Broomfield with Mitchell Hooten after his second place finish in shot put.
Not only has Coach Broomfield impacted the track and field team in his time at Greenville, but he also helps the rest of the sports teams by designing lifting programs for the teams. In his time as the head strength and conditioning coach, he has helped the sports teams get stronger so that they can perform to the best of their abilities. Just take a look at the last few years of titles won by teams, from women’s volleyball winning the regular season conference title for seven straight seasons to women’s basketball winning the NCCAA Women’s Basketball National Championship last year. Just naming a few accomplishments over the past few years, you can see the impact Coach Broomfield’s lifting programs make in helping Greenville’s sports teams become contenders in winning championships each year.
During Coach Broomfield’s coaching career at Greenville, he has affected many of his athlete’s lives with the impact that he has made on his former and current athletes. Coach Broomfield helps his athletes become better people and better athletes at the same time, and he has even been able to help one of his former athletes find his future wife. What Coach Broomfield thinks highly of his athletes, too, saying, “My athletes have a bigger impact on me than the impact I have on them. I’m blessed in what I get to coach these athletes and in what I have in my life.”
People who first meet Coach Broomfield in person wouldn’t expect him to be a great man like he is, but once you get to know him you could develop a life-long friendship with him. If one of Coach Broomfield’s athletes needed anything, even the shirt off his back, he would do it.
One of Coach Broomfield’s current athletes most definitely agrees that Coach would do anything to help his athletes. That athlete is senior thrower, Chris Crawford. Crawford, in his fourth year at Greenville, has been helped by Coach Broomfield in multiple ways, from improving him as a hammer thrower to being a better person in general. Crawford mentioned Coach Broomfield’s helpfulness: “Coach helps his athletes reach their potential in being an athlete and being an adult ready to meet the world head-on.” From this small quote from, you can tell what an impact Coach Broomfield makes on people’s lives.
