Gene Thompson was Delaware Coach of the Year in three sports and led Wilmington High School to the state boys basketball championship three times in an 11-year span.

After leading the Wilmington High junior varsity to a 62-game winning streak, Thompson, a science and math teacher, was promoted to head basketball coach in 1976-77, a role he filled until the school closed in 1999. In his second season, the Red Devils went 23-1 for a state title, followed by championships in 1983 and 1988. All three state champions entered the Final Four as underdogs. He produced seven first-team all-staters, five on the second team, and three players of the year, and had a 49-game Flight B winning streak.

He was an advocate of tennis for Wilmington High and City youth generally, for which he received the U.S. Tennis Association’s National Community Service Award in 1998.

His 1994 track team won the Division Two state title, even though the Red Devils won only one individual

event. He was named Delaware Coach of the Year in basketball (1978), tennis (1978) and track and field (1994). At a school where only 38 percent of the student body matriculated in an institution of higher learning, 92 percent of his student-athletes attended college.

He returned to Virginia in 2005 to coach men’s tennis at Virginia State University (161-104 over 14 years), while assisting on the women’s basketball team and serving as interim men’s coach.

He has been inducted into the Delaware Tennis Hall of Fame (2013), Delaware Basketball Hall of Fame (2013), Delaware Afro-American Sports Hall of Fame (2009), and Virginia Interscholastic Heritage Association Hall of Fame (2018).