Athletics Hall of Fame coach dies

By Jeff Frankel

Teaching accounting is hard enough, but being a coach in addition must have made it tougher for Rider Athletics Hall of Famer, Tom Leyden, who died on Nov. 19 at age 94.

“Tiger” Tom passed away in Tulsa, Ok., after coaching the men’s basketball team for 15 years in the ’40s and ’50s, coaching golf for a dozen years, and serving as athletic director. He is remembered as an outstanding basketball coach who led the Roughriders, the forerunner of the Broncs, to an overall record of 199-157.

He did not just challenge his male players to succeed, he also challenged the women who took his classes, said long-time friend and Rider graduate, Harvey Yavener.

“Women found it tough to take his classes because he always was tougher on the women than the men,” said Yavener. “If they wanted to make it in the business world, they had to be tougher than the men.”

Born in Huntington, N.Y., he excelled in basketball, baseball and golf at the University of Mississippi. He also was captain of the basketball team, an All-Southeast Conference selection and team MVP.

“He really could coach and he could play the game very well,” Yavener said.

Leyden’s 1957 squad was the first team to win 20 games that season, finishing 20-8. That same season, Rider defeated the heavily favored St. Michael’s of Vermont to advance to the National Quarterfinals in Evansville, Ind.

Although a star in all games he played, golf was a sport he loved to play, said Yavener.
Leyden was able to have a competitive basketball team while only having a “shoe-string budget” said Yavener.

“There was respect for the program and it was acknowledged that they were coached by someone who knew how to coach,” he said.

The golf teams he coached won the NAIA District Championships twice and had a pair of All-American seasons.

Behind it all, Leyden was not what he seemed to be.

“He was a very complex man,” said Yavener. “He seemed simple but there was depth there.”

He received the Rider University Award for Distinguished Teaching (formerly the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching) in 1976, and was inducted into the Rider Athletics Hall of Fame in 1993.