The New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Coach of the Year in 2024, George Pendergast led Tufts University to its first-ever NESCAC championship last spring. He is now in his 10th year as head coach of the Jumbos. 

Pendergast directed the Jumbo program to unprecedented success during the 2023-24 season. After winning the conference title, the Jumbos earned the program's first-ever NCAA Division III Tournament berth. Three Jumbos earned NESCAC All-Conference accolades, the most in the program's history. Under Pendergast's direction, 2023 graduate Jack Meehan won his third NESCAC individual championship in 2024 (co-champion), including 2022 and 2021.

Coach Pendergast has developed the Jumbos into one of the NESCAC's top programs throughout his tenure. Prior to winning last year's NESCAC championship, the team had runner-up finishes at the conference tournament in three straight years (2021-23). Until 2020 NESCAC held a fall qualifying tournament from which four teams advanced to a conference championship in the spring. From 2017-20, Pendergast's Tufts squads finished among the top four at NESCAC’s Fall Qualifier to earn a berth into the conference championship tournament. Tufts’ conference championship berth in 2017 under Pendergast was the program’s first since the Qualifier was instituted in 2007. In 2019, the Jumbos were the runner-up at the conference qualifier, just two strokes behind winner Williams College.

Pendergast was also a driving force behind Tufts hosting the NESCAC Qualifier for the first time ever in September 2019 at Sandy Burr Country Club. In addition to the conference success, the Jumbos placed among the top 10 teams at recent New England Intercollegiate Golf Association Championships. They tied for fourth in 2017 and were seventh in 2018.

The Jumbo golf team also excels academically. Last year Meehan was a member of the 2023-24 Academic All-America® men's at-large teams selected by College Sports Communicators. A biomedical engineering major, he won Tufts' 2024 Misic Prize for "demonstrating excellence athletically and academically, and being active in work which helps improve the human condition".

Pendergast was Associate Head Coach of the Jumbos for four years prior to taking over as head coach. His long career in golf includes a two-year stint as President of the Massachusetts Golf Association (MGA) in 2008-09. He was a member of the MGA's Executive Committee from 1985 to 2010 and served on its Hall of Fame Committee. Pendergast also served on the Executive Committees for the 1988 US Open and the 1999 Ryder Cup matches held at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass. He has over 25 years as a rules official for the MGA and US Golf Association. A competitor in several MGA championships, he has organized and run nearly a dozen golf trips to Ireland and Scotland.

A 1973 graduate of Hamilton College, George and his wife Elly live in Weston and have three daughters.