July 10, 2008

Contact: Brian McCann

Contact: Greg Murphy

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Shawn Hood, a four-year letterwinner at Cleveland State and a member of the 1986 men's basketball team that reached the Sweet 16, is returning to his alma mater as an assistant women's basketball coach. Head coach Kate Peterson Abiad made the announcement on Thursday (July 10).

Hood's hiring completes Peterson Abiad's staff for the 2008-09 season as he will join assistant coaches Angie Russell, who is beginning her third season, and Amy Wright, who was hired in late May.

"I am thrilled to add Shawn to our coaching staff and program," Peterson Abiad said. "He has a tremendous amount of experience at the collegiate level along with experience at helping to build programs to national prominence.

"Shawn has so much pride in Cleveland State and having him on our staff is going to be a great attribute. He comes from an outstanding coaching background and will have a positive impact on our defense because of the philosophies that he has learned throughout his career. I am excited to begin working with him."

Hood will assist in player development and scouting, while working with a talented group of guards returning to the program. Included in that group is junior Kailey Klein who finished second in the Horizon League in scoring last season, scoring a school-record 654 points, as well as junior Angel Roque who started all 33 games at point guard.

Hood returns to CSU after spending last season as an assistant coach with the boys and girls teams at Admiral King High in Lorain. The girls squad posted a 21-3 mark, winning the district championship.

A 1988 graduate of Cleveland State, Hood was a four-year letterwinner and two-year captain for the Vikings, leading the squad to the AMCU8 Championship in 1985 and 1986 and a bid to the NCAA Championship in 1986 where the 14th-seeded Vikings knocked off Indiana and St. Joseph's to advance to the Sweet 16.

A 2000 inductee into the CSU Athletic Hall of Fame, Hood holds the CSU career record for assist-to-turnover ratio (1.97), ranking fourth in career steals (227) and seventh in assists (395). He started all 30 games during his freshman campaign, which still ranks as the most starts by a first-year player in school history.

Upon graduating from CSU, Hood joined the Viking men's basketball staff as an assistant coach from 1988-94, helping CSU to a 95-75 record, including the 1992-93 Mid-Continent Conference championship when CSU went 15-1.

From there, he advanced his career to the University of Wisconsin, serving as an assistant coach under Dick Bennett from 1994-2001. He was part of a staff that led the Badgers to the 2000 Final Four and was part of the men's staff when Peterson Abiad was an assistant coach with the Badger women's team.

Following his time at Wisconsin, Hood served as the associate head coach at Curry College in Canton, Mass., from in 2003-04 before a two-year stint (2004-06) as head coach at Roxbury C.C. (Roxbury, Mass.).

A native of Boston, Mass., Hood was a standout at Don Bosco High, leading the squad to state championships in 1982 and 1983.

Cleveland State concluded the 2007-08 season with a 19-14 record and won its first-ever Horizon League Championship to earn the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Championship. The Vikings fell in the first round at eventual national runner-up Stanford.