Who Is Thomas Haugh? Florida’s Small-Town Star Who Wrote His Championship Blueprint at 13
At 13 years old, Thomas Haugh was given an assignment to choose a poem and analyze its themes.
He picked “The Battle Flag at Shenandoah,” a piece about Civil War soldiers marching into combat, and connected it to the only thing on his mind.
“The theme applies to me because I know that I need to put in work and time if I want to start for my AAU basketball team,” he wrote. “I sacrifice time with friends and downtime at home in order to be a better basketball player.”
His seventh grade language arts teacher, Anthony Angelini, kept that paper. Nine years later, Haugh is a national champion.
“He was so set on it that he recognized the sacrifice it demanded to get to that next level,” Angelini said. “As much as he was such an earnest kid in the classroom, you could see when he would flip that switch to become a competitor.”
Loading ...That switch has been flipping ever since. Haugh, now a 22-year-old junior wearing No. 10 for Florida men’s basketball, has helped carry the Gators to the No. 1 seed in the South Region of the 2026 NCAA Tournament, one win at a time from the same small town that shaped him.
That town is New Oxford, Pa. Population: just under 2,000.
Angelini has been teaching at New Oxford Middle School for nearly two decades. He remembers a taller-than-most seventh grader who stayed after class, between school and athletic study hall before basketball practice, to go over his writing face to face.
“He would just be relentless in trying to be better,” Angelini said. “That was always something that stood out to me, how much he wanted to grow as a writer, and how seriously he took that even back in seventh grade.”
Basketball wasn’t the only thing competing for Haugh’s attention, much to his coaches’ disappointment. He was also a member of the New Oxford Middle School ski club, something that made the adults in his life understandably nervous.
“He doesn’t seem like a skier when you look at him,” Angelini said, “(but) he did participate.”
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While New Oxford sat squarely in Penn State country, with the Nittany Lions just two hours away, Haugh was never confused about which school had his heart. At 8 years old, he carried a metal Gators lunchbox to school. He idolized Tim Tebow. The dream was set long before any coach came calling.
“He had the shirts and the lunch boxes and everything else was Florida, so you end up rooting for Florida too because you want him to be happy,” his father Ryan Haugh said.
When UF offered, Thomas committed about a week later. Ryan tried to take the measured approach by evaluating the system, the league and the coaching staff, but even he couldn’t fight it.
“The emotions took over,” Ryan said, “but they took over for the right reasons.”
Thomas began his high school career at New Oxford High School — the building adjacent to his former middle school. He was a Colonial for two short years before transferring to Perkiomen School, a college-prepartory school in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, where he was teammates with Florida guard Xaivian Lee.
Thomas took a post-grad year to gain more exposure and develop both on and off the court.
“I was a little skeptical of it,” he said. “But just working hard that next year at Perkiomen, becoming more mature and more of a man — it helped me a lot in life, not just basketball. That definitely helped me get to the spot I’m in right now.”
When Thomas began playing high school basketball, he wasn’t exactly the star player he is today. He played on both the junior varsity and varsity teams as a freshman but didn’t have much experience on the advanced stage.
The Colonials etched their best season in school history during Thomas’ sophomore campaign, advancing to the Elite Eight of the 5A state playoffs. They closed out the 2019-20 season with a 26-5 record, winning 12 of their 14 games against conference opponents.
New Oxford won its first state playoff game in its 70-year history just a week prior to high school athletics — and the world — being shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thomas wasn’t the flashiest player in his final season with the Colonials, but he carved a role on the roster. He averaged 7.8 points, 6.7 rebounds and just over a steal and a block per game that season.
“We made quite a run that year in the district playoffs and the state playoffs, and he was a huge part of that,” said Nate Myers, Thomas’ high school coach. “He was very good defensively and a very good rebounder. But towards the latter part of the season, he really started to score. You could see that confidence starting to build in him.”
Similar to his Florida tenure, it took time for Thomas to heat up. He averaged 3.9 points during his freshman year as a Gator, but is posting 17.1 per game this season.
“Coach Golden established great groundworks for me and my ability to fit into this team and the system has just propelled my game,” Thomas said. “It’s all credit to them and credit the teammates he brought in too. It’s all part of the game plan and it’s paying off.”
Thomas has notched a handful of honors thus far, being named to the All-SEC First Team and a top-five finalist for the Julius Erving Award ahead of the SEC Tournament.
“It’s just been a blessing to play these last couple of years with Florida,” Thomas said. “It’s been the best time of my life.”
He has received more stardom and recognition than ever as Florida gears up for the NCAA Tournament. The Gators will face the winner of Wednesday’s Prairie View A&M-Lehigh matchup on Friday at Benchmark International Arena in Tampa, Florida.
But regardless of how bright the lights are, Thomas said he will never forget where he came from.
“It’s awesome, it’s New Oxford,” he said about his hometown rooting for him. “My mom even talks about it, when she’s getting groceries people come up to her just talking about the game. It’s really special. I’m never going to forget that little small town in PA.”
It’s not just the little compliments his mother, Jenn, receives in the local grocery store. Thomas has made it a point to return to his former schools whenever he gets the chance.
Last summer, he returned home to attend an elementary camp, where he spent time with kids and signed autographs.
“He’s always willing to give back, which I’m very appreciative of,” Myers said. “Obviously the community here follows him all the time and it’s just nice when you see ‘New Oxford, Pa.,’ come up on the screen.”
Myers said there has been a “huge uptick” in Gators gear over the last couple of years. New Oxford Middle has also joined in on the fun. Angelini said the school has orange and blue spirit days to honor their alumni.
The students in Angelini’s class today were around 3 years old when Thomas sat in their seats. Even so, the new slew of kids are always fixated on the current state of Gators men’s basketball.
“It’s amazing how much our seventh graders look up to their own little local heroes,” Angelini said. “It was pretty inspirational to see how much they realized that anything is possible. The dream doesn’t always happen to people far away or who have some kind of special background, but it can be one of them too.”
Whether as a 13-year-old sitting at a New Oxford Middle School desk analyzing a Civil War poem or hoisting the national championship trophy, Thomas has always made a point to stay in the moment and appreciate those around him. That makeup as a person rubs off on everyone he encounters on and off the court — and could help the Gators win in the Battle of March Madness.
“I’ve had a lot of students in 19 years and a lot of them have been successful. I’m not sure if they’ve ever been successful in such a spotlight, but I also know that Tommy deserves it,” Angelini said. “He’s one of those people who’s going to use it to help others. He’s already done that just as a part of the Florida team here at New Oxford. I’m glad to see someone who has worked as far back as seventh grade, as hard as I could ever ask a kid to work, let it all pay off.”
Category: Feature Sports News, Gators Men's Basketball
