NEW YORK (March 13, 2025) --- Bloomfield College men's basketball Head Coach Gerald Holmes will be honored in April with a Distinguished Service Award from the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association.
 
The presentation will be made at the 92nd MBWA All-Met Haggerty Awards Dinner scheduled Thursday, April 24, at the Sleepy Hollow Hotel & Conference Center in Tarrytown, NY.
 
It was previously announced that one other MBWA Distinguished Service Award would be presented at the dinner to Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman.
 
Holmes is being recognized for his guiding mentorship of student-athletes and his outstanding team accomplishments across 32 years of coaching at the high school and collegiate levels.
 
The 2024-25 basketball season marked Holmes' 23rd guiding the Bloomfield College of Montclair State University men's basketball program as head coach. He is the longest tenured coach at the school and his reign has seen his teams generally become one of the preeminent powers in the East Region.
 
Holmes has compiled a 408-262 won-loss record (.609%) while winning eight CACC tournament championships and 12 regular season first place finishes. Included within those tournament titles are two 3-peats (2004-2006 & 2011-2013), with the last league championship coming in 2020. The Bears, under Holmes' direction have made nine NCAA tournament appearances.
 
In 2011, Holmes guided his team to an NCAA East Region Championship and a berth in the Elite Eight. The Bears earned the No. 7 seed in the bracket and knocked off the top three seeds to claim the regional title. To date, Bloomfield remains the only CACC team to win the East Region Championship.
 
Holmes has been honored as the CACC Coach of the Year six times --- 2009, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2020 & 2023 --- as well as being named Coach of the Year by the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association in 2005, 2011 and 2018. Holmes has produced the CACC Player of the Year six times, most recently in 2019 when he coached the player and defensive player of the year Kavione Green.
 
Prior to being named head coach, Holmes spent one season as an assistant at Bloomfield. He came to the campus via his alma mater, New Jersey Institute of Technology, where he spent two seasons as assistant men's basketball coach. On the high school level, Holmes spent six years at Columbia H.S. in Maplewood, NJ, where he served as JV head coach and assistant varsity coach.
 
A resident of West Orange, NJ, he holds a B.S. degree in Engineering Science from NJIT.
 
For a list of past MBWA DSA honorees: https://metbasketballwriters.org/sports/2014/1/24/GEN_0124145812.aspx