Published: July 03, 2009 12:00 am      

Former assistant to coach Hartwick men

Hartwick College has named former assistant Todd McGuinness its men's basketball coach, the Hawks announced Thursday.

Pittsburgh native McGuinness has spent the last eight years as a men's basketball assistant, beginning with a 2002-04 stint at Hartwick. His career began with the 2002-03 season at Hartwick, when the Hawks went 10-15 in the last of Tim McGraw's five seasons as head coach. McGuinness also assisted Hartwick's 2-22 team in 2003-04, when Paul Culpo took over the program.

McGuinness replaces Culpo, who announced in May that he would resign at the end of June to accept the head coach position at Castleton State College.

Hartwick went 49-102 under Culpo from 2003-09. After back-to-back two-win seasons, Culpo's Hawks had three straight 10-15 finishes. This past winter, he led the Hawks to a 15-12 record that included a 69-60 victory over St. John Fisher in the Eastern College Athletic Conference Upstate New York title game.

McGuinness, who becomes the 19th head coach in the program's 80-year history, spent the last three seasons as the assistant men's basketball coach at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Case Western competes in the University Athletic Association and has won the last two NCAA Division III titles.

McGuinness, who also spent two seasons (2004-2006) as an assistant coach at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, played four seasons of NCAA D-III basketball at Bethany College in West Virginia.

A three-year starter and two-time co-captain, McGuinness helped the Bison to President's Athletic Conference titles in 2001 and 2002, the latter resulting in an NCAA tournament appearance. He earned his bachelor's from Bethany in physical education (K-12) in 2002.

McGuinness also played three seasons at Gateway High in Pittsburgh and received first-team all-section honors in 1998. Hartwick selected McGuinness from a pool of more than 150 applicants, the college stated in a media release.