Tamlyn Tills
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- Title:
- Head Coach
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- Phone:
- 847-735-6082
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- Email:
- tills@lakeforest.edu
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The 2023-24 season will be Tamlyn Tills’ 16th at Lake Forest College and 29th as a collegiate head coach.
Under Tills’ direction, the Foresters are now 125-117 in Midwest Conference play during her 15 seasons at the College and the Foresters have finished in the top half of the league nine times during that span. The 2017-18 MWC Coach of the Year has led her teams to a higher winning percentage than in the previous year 15 times as a collegiate head coach.
Katie Neher led the conference and ranked 18th in the nation with 20.9 points per game in 2022-23. She also ranked among the league leaders with 8.0 rebounds, 3.5 assists, and 2.0 steals per contest and earned MWC Player of the Year and D3hoops.com First Team All-Region honors. At least one Forester has been named all-conference in 13 of Tills’ 14 full seasons. In addition, seven of her players were named Academic All-MWC in 2022-23, giving the program 83 such honors since Tills took over as head coach.
Lake Forest set several free throw shooting records in 2022-23 and has broken or matched 35 school records in Tills’ first 15 years. Among the marks are a 116-point game, a player making eight three-pointers in a single contest, and the highest field goal percentage for a Forester in a game and career.
Before coming to Lake Forest, Tills was the head coach at Concordia University Chicago for six seasons. She led the 2007-08 Cougars to the semifinals of the conference tournament and came within one win of the program’s record for victories in a season. Her 2003-04 squad was the first in school history to host a first-round game in the Northern Illinois-Iowa Conference Tournament and the 2005-06 squad made the program’s first-ever appearance in the league’s championship game. Tills also served as Concordia Chicago's interim athletic director for two years.
Prior to her time at Concordia Chicago, Tills was a head coach for three seasons (1999-2002) at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, and four (1992-96) at Concordia University in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Tills earned her 100th career victory overall while coaching at Concordia Chicago in December of 2005, reached the 200-win plateau against Lawrence University in February of 2013, and enters 2021-22 with 284 triumphs in her career. She became just the second Lake Forest coach to win 100 games at the College when the Foresters defeated Lawrence University 90-32 in the 2016-17 season finale.
Tills was also an NCAA Division I assistant coach at Marquette University from 1987-90 and at California State University-Fullerton from 1996-99. She has experience at the professional level as well, having worked in the front office of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks from 1990-92.
Her coaching career began at Divine Savior Holy Angels High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she was the athletic director and volleyball and basketball coach from 1985-87.
Tills was also a successful player, scoring more than 1,000 career points at both Milwaukee Lutheran High School and the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. She was an All-American and part of the 1980-81 Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women national championship team at La Crosse and is a member of the school’s Hall of Fame.
She resides in nearby Libertyville.
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