Year: 2022
Award: Legacy
Location/Affiliation: Colorado State University Volleyball
- Recorded over 800 wins
- Winningest coach in CSU history
- Inducted into the CSU Hall of Fame
To sum up Tom Hilbert’s 35-year career of coaching volleyball in one paragraph is impossible. Tom started his coaching career at Kentucky. From there, he went to the University of Idaho for seven years and landed at Colorado State University in 1997.
In 2022, after 26 seasons, Tom retired. During his 26 years with the Rams, Tom’s teams won 637 games, making him the winningest coach of any sports in CSU history. Anyone who knows Tom knows his program was about much more than wins, 18 Mountain West titles, 98 All-Conference players and 11 All-Americans – it was about building a program for students and fans to support and empowering the sport of women’s volleyball. The attendance for CSU volleyballs games was, literally, record breaking. Tom was adored by fans (including this one), media (including this one) and his players. He cared for his players and recruited those he thought could not only help the program but also would fit into the team culture. He was inducted into the CSU Athletic Hall of Fame in 2006 and today we honor Tom Hilbert with our Legacy Award for his decades of coaching women’s volleyball at CSU and beyond.
