T.J. Lipold joined the Pilots as an assistant coach in April of 2021, re-joining head coach Shantay Legans after spending the last four years on staff Eastern Washington.
Lipold began in an operations role before his promotion to assistant coach for the 2020-21 season with the Eagles. During his four-year stint with Legans at the helm Eastern Washington won the Big Sky Conference regular season title in 2019-20 and then the 2021 Big Sky Tournament championship.
The program won 75 games overall and went 53-20 (.726) in league play. EWU had won 23 games entering the 2019-20 postseason before the COVID-19 pandemic ended the team's run prematurely.
He also helped develop three Big Sky Conference MVP's in the last four years: Tanner Groves (2021), Mason Peatling (2020) and Bogdan Bliznyuk (2018). Peatling also earned Academic All-American honors.
Lipold joined the EWU basketball program in June of 2017 in an assistant director of basketball operations and video coordinator. He then moved into the director of operations role for the 2019-20 and was promoted to assistant coach this past year. Lipold assisted in all areas of the program during his tenure with a focus on defense in coaching role.
Prior to his stint in Cheney, Lipold began his coaching career at Saddleback College, where he played his first two years of collegiate basketball. He served three seasons as an assistant coach with the program highlighted by a 2015 CCAA State Championship run.
As a player at Saddleback, Lipold was an All-Orange Empire League first team selection and led the squad to the 2010 CCAA State Championship.
He then played two years at Westmont College, where he was a part of back-to-back 25-win seasons from 2010-12.
Lipold earned a degree in communications from Westmont in 2012 and a master's degree in education from National University (Costa Mesa, Calif.) in 2014.