Stevenson girls basketball coach Tom Dineen loves virtually everything about the game of golf.
“I like being outside, I like the competition and it’s relaxing,” he said. “In my younger days, I would get mad at bad shots, but now I [realize] that a bad day on the golf course is [still] a good day.”
Dineen expects to have many more good days on the golf course this fall. During the basketball season, he was named the Patriots’ girls varsity golf coach. He had spent two seasons as the junior varsity golf coach at Stevenson.
Although Dineen is best known for coaching girls basketball at Buffalo Grove and Stevenson — he has more than 750 victories to his credit — he has plenty of experience coaching golf. At Buffalo Grove, he was a lower-level boys golf coach for almost 20 years and coached the boys varsity from 2000 to 2008.
“I knew that I always wanted to be a basketball and baseball coach at Buffalo Grove, and when the golf position opened up, I got into it,” he said.
After a one-year retirement in 2008, he returned to coaching to lead the Stevenson girls basketball program. Now, his retirement is even more active, as he will coach two varsity sports.
“Even though I’m retired from teaching, I feel like I’ve still got something left to give to the kids,” he said. “Everyone at Stevenson has made me feel very comfortable and welcome. I feel like I’ve been there for an awful long time.”
Stevenson athletic director Trish Betthauser said she’s excited about having Dineen coach multiple sports. Recently, the Patriots have featured two tremendous individual players. Stephanie Miller (now at Illinois) won the Class AA state title in 2011 and 2012. Last year, Nikki Marquardt (now at Tulsa) placed 20th at the state tournament.
“Spend any time with him, and you can see he still has a great deal of energy and passion for coaching,” Betthauser said. “When he expressed interest in the [position] it was a natural fit.”
At the end of the last basketball season, the girls recognized Dineen’s love of golf by giving him tickets to the PGA Tour’s BMW Championship at Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest.
Incoming junior Myra Peterson is a basketball player and golfer.
“When you see him on the basketball court his face will get red, but in golf he’s quite calm,” she said. “He seems tough on the outside but we joke around a lot and he’s really funny.”
Dineen said he enjoys the challenges presented by coaching golf.
“Basketball and golf [rely] on fundamentals, but in golf the conditions and the course change and that’s where the strategy comes in,” he said. “I’ve never professed to be a swing coach, but I can help them with the competitive and course-management aspects of the game.”
