College of Lake County Athletic Director, Nic Scandrett, announced John Bongiorno as the new Head Women’s Basketball Coach.
“I couldn’t be more pleased with how this coaching search ended up,” Scandrett said. “Coach Bongiorno has a tremendous amount of experience and has shown he can win at the college level. He’s exactly the type of individual that we were looking for to build our program. The players are going to love him.”
The Lancer women’s basketball program took a one-year hiatus in the 2016-17 season to reorient the program back to being an annual competitive force.
“We have worked hard to develop the program’s infrastructure to prepare for future success,” Scandrett said. “We have made significant improvements to the facility, increased scholarship funds, and have found a quality coach. We now have everything we need to compete for a conference title.”
Bongiorno’s first coaching stint in intercollegiate athletics started in 1998 when he was hired as the Assistant Men’s Basketball Coach at Kendall College (Chicago, IL). After 12 games in the 1998-99 season, the head coach resigned and Bongiorno was promoted to lead the program moving forward. The team was 1-11 at the time, and Bongiorno led a remarkable turnaround to win the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference regular season championship. In six years as the head coach at Kendall, he won two conference championships and was named the CCAC Coach of the Year in 1999 and again in 2004. Bongiorno eventually served as the athletic director at Kendall in addition to his basketball duties. After the 2004 season the college discontinued athletics and Bongiorno entered the private sector.
Bongiorno has extensive experience coaching at the high school level as well. Starting in 2013, he spent three years as the Head Boys Basketball Coach at Maine West High School (Des Plaines, IL) as well as the Head Girls Tennis Coach. Prior to that, he was named the Head Boys Basketball Coach at Francis Parker High School (Chicago, IL) in 2008, where he won two IHSA Regional Titles in his five years leading the program. His first high school head coaching job was at Hales Franciscan High School (Chicago, IL) where he was the Head Boys Basketball Coach, Head Baseball Coach, and Athletic Director.
Coach Bongiorno’s coaching career began as the Assistant Men’s Basketball Coach at Elmhurst College (Elmhurst, IL).
“I’m looking forward to building a program that the community will be proud of and support,” Bongiorno said. “I know that there is a group of very talented players in the area that I hope will consider CLC as a destination to continue their careers.”
