Bio

Tommy Snell

Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College (2000-Present) / Coach (Golf)
Gulfport, Mississippi

Tommy Snell has built a golf powerhouse at Gulf Coast, which reached the pinnacle in 2018 with the first team NJCAA Division II national golf championship in school history. His teams have finished in the top six of the national tournament the last eight years and have won 11 of the last 12 National Junior College Athletic Association Region 23/District D titles. He has sent more than 40 golfers to four-year schools.

Snell has been at Perkinston since 2000, and he was inducted into the NJCAA Men’s Golf Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2015. His teams have also won seven Mississippi Association of Junior and Community Colleges championships and been runners-up seven times. He was the Mississippi Association of Coaches Community College Coach of the Year in 2016.

Gulf Coast has sent golfers to the national tournament every year since 2002, and the Golf Coaches Association of America named Snell the Dave Williams National Coach of the Year for NJCAA Division II in 2008 and 2018.

Prior to coming to Gulf Coast, Snell was the golf coach at St. John High School, where his team won five straight Class 2A state championships. He was a three-time Mississippi High School Activities Association Coach of the Year.

Snell is very active on the national golf scene as a United States Golf Association rules official and a member of the USGA Junior Championship Committee. He is a frequent rules official at NCAA championships and is on the NCAA Division I National Championship Committee. It allows him to develop contacts for his far-reaching network of college coaches that enables Gulf Coast to send its golfers to the next level.

Snell is on the Golf Coaches Association of America national championship advisory board, and he was a weekly columnist for the Sun Herald. He was a U.S Open qualifying medalist in 1980 and winner of several amateur and professional tournaments. He was inducted into both the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College Athletic Hall of Fame and the Gulfport Sports Hall of Fame in 2019.

He attended Gulfport East High School before graduating from Sam Houston High in Arlington, Texas. Snell earned a bachelor’s degree in English from The University of Southern Mississippi, graduating with highest honors. He also has a master’s degree from William Carey University.