Hugh "Buzz" Phillips has been hired as the Director of Promotions, Operations and Event Management, Athletics Director Johnny Williams announced this week.

Prior to accepting his position at TSU, Phillips spent 10 years at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Ala. He served the first five years as the Assistant Athletics Director and Assistant Head Baseball Coach for the Hawks.

Phillips then spent his last five years as the Assistant Athletics Director and Head Men’s Basketball Coach after reviving a program that had been defunct since 1979. Phillips’ 2000-01 team won the National Small College Athletic Association National Championship. That same year he received National Coach of the Year and the Birmingham Tip-off Club National Coach of the Year among NSCAA coaches.

Before entering the college coaching ranks, Phillips coached for 20 years at a number of high schools, the most recent being a five-year stint in Blakely, Ga.

Phillips is a Troy State graduate, receiving his bachelor’s degree in education in 1969. While at TSU as a student, Phillips served as a student assistant with the football program from 1967-69 and played baseball from 1968-69. After leaving Troy, Phillips went on to receive teaching certification from Auburn in 1972 and worked on his master’s at Montevallo.