State College, Pa. - May 7, 2003 - Former Penn State Nittany Lion basketball coach Jeff Bower has left his post as general manager of the National Basketball Association's New Orleans Hornets and will return to the coaching ranks as an assistant coach at Penn State. Bower's hiring completes head coach Ed DeChellis' staff.
"Jeff is an outstanding addition to our staff," DeChellis said. "He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience from the NBA as well as his collegiate work. Jeff will be very instrumental in every aspect of our program and his knowledge and experience will be greatly relied upon."
Bower, who has been with the New Orleans Hornets for eight years, was an assistant at Penn State from 1983 through 1986. He served three seasons under former head coach Bruce Parkhill. Overall, he has 12 years of collegiate coaching experience. He left Penn State after the 1985-86 season to become an assistant coach at Marist, where he stayed for nine seasons. He was the associate head coach at Marist for the last five years of his tenure there.
In 1995, he made the jump to the professional ranks, serving as an advanced scout for the Hornets from 1995 through 1997. He was named the Hornets' director of scouting in 1997, a position he held through the '99-'00 NBA season. He spent the last part of the 1998-99 season as an assistant coach as well. Bower was a member of the steering committee for the NBA's Technology Summit in 1997-98 and was a guest on numerous of the International Basketball Academy in Croatia, where he assisted with clinics for both coaches and players.
He became the assistant general manager for the 2000-01 season and was then promoted to GM in June of 2001. Bower handled the day-to-day basketball operations for the Hornets, assisting the Vice President of Basketball Operations in all aspects of running the NBA franchise.
Bower is a 1983 graduate of St. Francis College in nearby Loretto, Pa., where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history/education. A native of Hollidaysburg, Pa., Bower and his wife, Lisa, are the parents of one daughter, Lindsey, who was born in January of 2003. Bower will remain with the New Orleans Hornets in his current capacity through the June 26 NBA Draft.