Thomas Boyle’s family coaching roots runs deep in St. Joseph’s hoops. He’s following a similar path.

For most of Thomas Boyle’s upbringing, his world revolved around St. Joseph’s basketball.

The Havertown native grew up watching his grandfathers, Jim Lynam and the late Jim Boyle, run the Hawks’ program. They both went to Hawk Hill where they were teammates and friends.

Eventually Lynam became the Hawks’ head coach, with Jim on his staff. When Lynam left for an assistant coaching position with the Portland Trailblazers in 1981, Jim took his place at the helm for nine seasons.

Thomas’ mother, Kathy, is the daughter of Lynam, while Thomas’ father, Jim, is the son of Boyle. Thomas’ childhood was spent going to basketball games at then-named Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse with his family.

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Now, Boyle is working his way up the coaching ranks under coach Steve Donahue. The St. Joe’s graduate, who started off as a student manager, was recently promoted to associate head coach.

“​​I really appreciate Coach Donahue for giving me the opportunity and kind of just recognizing the work that I’ve put in,” Boyle said. “I owe it a lot to a lot of the other coaches, not just Coach Donahue. I’ve worked for a lot of coaches, Coach [Phil] Martelli, all his assistants and Coach [Billy] Lange ... so it’s just been a build up and a lot of work put in and this is good to get that nod.”

Boyle and his four siblings often went to St. Joe’s games with their grandma Tess Boyle and cousins. When St. Joe’s made it to the Elite Eight in 2004, he and his older brother, Brian, recall crying after the Hawks lost to Oklahoma State, 64-62, to end their dream season.

Thomas and Brian, who are less than three years apart, were inseparable. They played in the same basketball leagues and hung out with the same friends. The two, along with their younger brother KJ, would play pickup with their cousins Colin and Ryan Daly and Mike Doyle.

Now, five of the six are college basketball coaches.

Brian is an assistant coach at Air Force. Ryan is an assistant at Syracuse and was coached by Thomas at St. Joe’s from 2019-21. Colin, who played a year at Temple, is at North Carolina A&T as an assistant and Doyle coaches at La Salle.

Despite being busy, they have remained close. They’ll update each other about their lives and chat basketball in their group chat. The same goes for Thomas and Brian.

“Our closeness and our relationship as brothers and as colleagues in this business is really strong,” Brian said. “We lean on each other a lot, in terms of basketball, in terms of life, in terms of parenting. It’s really nice and unique, cool and special to have a brother as close as him and I are.”

Thomas and Brian played hoops in high school. Brian went to Bonner-Prendergast and played at University of the Sciences, before it merged with St. Joe’s in June 2022.

Thomas followed his older brother to Bonner-Prendie, but transferred to Archbishop Carroll for his final two years. Beside basketball, he dabbled in tennis. When he graduated high schoo he went to West Chester.

That lasted for a year.

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He initially didn’t want to follow his family members’ college path, but wasn’t fulfilled during his year at West Chester. Thomas transferred to St. Joe’s for his sophomore year and felt at home.

He reached out to Martelli, who coached with Jim Boyle, about a position with the team. Thomas spent his junior and senior year working as a student manager.

“He wanted to be in basketball,” said Kathryn Boyle, Thomas’ younger sister. “That’s what my grandfathers did and a lot of the men in our family were coaches, and that’s definitely something that Thomas always wanted. So it was really special to watch him.”

Despite wanting to stay with the program, the Hawks’ staff was filled after Thomas graduated in 2015. So he took an internship with the Atlantic 10 in Virginia. He spent a year there before returning as a graduate assistant under Martelli and was trained by his son, Phil Martelli Jr. He moved to director of player operations, before Martelli was fired in 2018 and replaced by Lange.

With his job security up in the air, Thomas was unsure of what was to come next.

“I had some mutual people through my family that knew [Lange],” Thomas said. “I didn’t know him personally, but my brother knew him. He had worked with him in the past and my grandfather [Lynam] knows him. So there were just mutual people that knew him that had reached out. We were able to sit down and talk.”

Lange retained Thomas. He started in a video coordinator role before Lange promoted him to a bench position. Lange and Thomas worked together for six seasons up until Lange departed from program in September. Donahue, initially hired as an assistant, was thrusted into the head position, and Thomas helped the new coach ease into the job.

“He knows the St Joe’s crowd better than anybody,” Donahue said. “I leaned on him more for those kinds of things, just navigating the daily life here. He has a good way about him in games that he reads to what’s going on. I trust his feel for the game.”

The Hawks won 13 of their final 16 games and advanced to the A-10 semifinals. St. Joe’s went 24-12 and appeared in the National Invitation Tournament.

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At the end of the seaon, Donahue promoted Thomas and assistant coach Bino Ranson. Thomas has been under three coaches during his time at St. Joe’s. For him, it means a lot to climb through the ranks.

“He did a year in Virginia, working for just the NCAA,” Kathryn said. “That was definitely a time where he was really far away from family and he was by himself, but I really looked up to him because it was like something that he knew he needed to do for his career. And so even though it was a difficult time he stuck with it. He was able to come back and continue his career at St. Joe’s and he’s just moved up the ladder… It’s been really special as his little sister to watch him grow through all the different programs.”