Jim Cantamessa enters his sixth season at the helm of the Greensboro College men's golf program, building a program that competes at a high level nationally each season.
Cantamessa's squad finished the 2020-21 season ranked tenth in the Bushnell GolfWeek Division III poll after earning a top-25 spot in every poll during the year. The Pride claimed victory in the Hampden-Sydney Invitational by 13-strokes in late April, claiming three of the top four individual spots on the leaderboard. The Pride placed fifth in a crowded USA South Athletic Conference (USA South) Championship field featuring three other top-ten teams.
Under his leadership, the Pride competed in the 2018 NCAA Division III Men's Golf Championships at nearby Grandover Resort. Cantamessa led Levi Grogan to a fifth-place finish individually as the Pride finished 14th as a team. That season, the Pride collected two team victories and a second-place finished in The Gordin Classic played in the fall.Â
A perennial contender on the national scene, the Pride have competed in the NCAA Division III Men's Golf Championship as individuals or as a team three times in Cantamessa's tenure. The Pride placed fourth in the 2017 NCAA Division III Men's Golf Championship at the Mission Inn Resort's El Campeon course, the highest-ranked USA South team in the NCAA field. In that tournament, Cantamessa's golfers fired the second-lowest third round score as a team (294). That effort came after a second-place finish in a stacked USA South Men's Golf Championship that season where the Pride finished seven shots off the lead.
Over his tenure as Greensboro's head coach, Cantamessa has helped his golfers earn ten All-USA South selections and guided 2017 USA South Rookie of the Year Grant Powell to the honor.
Prior to Cantamessa's time as head coach, he spent two years as assistant coach for the Pride from 2013 to 2016. He helped Greensboro's golfers achieve fourth-place finishes in each season's USA South Athletic Conference Men's Golf Championships in 2015 and 2016 while posting third-place finishes in 2013 and 2014.
In addition to his golf duties, Cantamessa also leads the men's basketball program at Greensboro College. Cantamessa enters his third season as head coach and his 12th season as a coach on the Pride's men's basketball squad. Cantamessa oversaw a nine-win improvement in his first season, 2018-19, from the previous year and helped led the Pride as an assistant coach to the 2012 USA South Athletic Conference Men's Basketball Championship Final.
Prior to Greensboro, Cantamessa played eight years (2000-08) of professional basketball in Europe. He played for teams in France, Germany, Portugal and Belgium. He was a Euro All-Star in '08, and was a member of a Belgian national championship team in '05.
Cantamessa attended Siena College where he played basketball for Coach Paul Hewitt and was the nation's leading three-point shooter in 1997. Cantamessa graduated from Siena with a degree in business finance in 2000.
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