John Hamilton

John Hamilton is in his fourth season as an assistant coach with the Transylvania men’s basketball team for the 2022-23 season. Hamilton’s first campaign with the Pioneers witnessed Transylvania return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in seven seasons as he helped the program achieve a 19-9 overall record and a sweep of the HCAC regular season and conference tournament titles.

A former Division III basketball player with an array of coaching experience, Hamilton came to the Pioneers most recently from Midway University in Midway, Kentucky, where he spent the 2018-19 season as an assistant coach for their men’s basketball program.

“I am beyond blessed to have this opportunity to be a part of the men’s basketball program at Transylvania University,” Hamilton said. “I am so grateful to head coach Brian Lane for giving me this opportunity. I am looking forward to joining this winning culture and to help this program improve every day.”

At Midway, Hamilton assisted in all facets of the men’s basketball program, including designing practice and in-game management, developing scouting report, recruiting, overseeing practices, and helping guide the academic progress of student-athletes. Two players under Hamilton’s guidance earned All-Conference honors. In Hamilton’s tenure at Midway, the Eagles saw a 10-game improvement from two years prior.

Prior to his time at Midway, Hamilton served as an assistant coach at Division III Centenary College of Louisiana in Shreveport, Louisiana for the 2017-2018 season under his former collegiate coach, Chris Dorsey. Along with Dorsey, Hamilton helped the Gents finish as the regular season runner-up in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference and a runner-up in the SCAC Tournament. With Hamilton on the staff, Centenary led the conference in scoring defense and second in the conference in both field goal and three-point field goal defense.

While at Centenary, Hamilton spearheaded the process of creating and managing an online national recruiting database for the men’s basketball program.

Hamilton began his coaching career as an assistant coach at Central Community College in Columbus Nebraska, where he helped guide the Raiders to an 18-14 record in 2016-17.

In addition to his collegiate coaching stints, Hamilton has been involved with a number of other leadership and coaching endeavors intersecting with the game of basketball. From 2015 through 2017, Hamilton was a Director of Operations Intern and Youth Mentor with The Young Vets, mentoring student-athletes and directing player development. Over the past two years, Hamilton has also worked as a basketball camp counselor at the University of Kentucky and Valparaiso University.

As a student-athlete, Hamilton competed at Lyndon State College in Lyndonville, Vermont from 2014 through 2016. At Lyndon State, Hamilton played under Dorsey, whom he would later join with again for his coaching duties at Centenary. Hamilton graduated from Lyndon State in 2016 with a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice.