Coach’s Corner: Meet Carl DiSarno, the Greyducks’ New Head Coach

“I’ve tried to let the boys know that I can only take them so far. They have to take ownership of their training if they are going to get faster and if we are going to have success as a team.”—Carl DiSarno, coach

As they do each fall, the Greyducks are practicing hard and gearing up for their upcoming cross country meets, but with one notable difference. The boys’ cross country team has a new head coach: Carl DiSarno. DiSarno has replaced the now retired Mark Mendes, the Greyducks’ beloved coach who was the boys’ head cross country coach from 2000 until 2016. “Even though Coach Mendes left some pretty big shoes to fill, I think I’m up to the task,” DiSarno confidently acknowledged. And DiSarno is certainly more than qualified for the task.

DiSarno, who grew up in Brooklyn and moved to Connecticut when he was 10 years old, only began to run as a high school freshman because his mother thought he was too small to play football and didn’t want him to get hurt. As DiSarno noted, his mother made the “right decision” because he proved himself to be an all-star athlete in track and field. As a high school runner, he was selected twice for the All-State team and was placed on the All-New England team as a high school senior. DiSarno then attended Fordham University on a track scholarship. While at Fordham, he mainly competed in the 10,000-meter and 5,000-meter runs and was team captain as a senior. In addition, DiSarno was twice named to the prestigious Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America (ICAAAA) All-East Team in cross country. But DiSarno remains humble about his accomplishments. “More importantly, the friendships that I made with my teammates at Fordham are what shaped me into the person that I am today.”

DiSarno is much more than an accomplished athlete; he is also a sixth-grade social studies teacher and the cross country and track coach at Robert F. Wagner Middle School in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Though Wagner is a large middle school with a track team, it did not have a cross country team. However, in 2014, the principal at Wagner allowed DiSarno to spearhead Wagner’s first cross country program.

In the short time DiSarno has been coaching Wagner’s cross country team, the Wagner middle school runners have enjoyed great success, which he hopes will also translate to continued success for the Stuyvesant cross country runners. Under his helm, the Wagner girls’ cross country team won three straight NYC titles and the Wagner boys’ cross country team won two consecutive titles. However, DiSarno considers Wagner’s win at the 2016 City Championship in spring track to be his “most satisfying accomplishment.” This win was very special to him because it was the culmination of three years of hard work for his eighth-grade athletes for whom he had started the cross country program at Wagner.

DiSarno’s pride for his athletes is apparent as he has followed their successes in their respective high schools: “That group of kids are now sophomores, and as freshmen, they won city championships, borough championships, county championships and two were even named All-Americans.” One such athlete who has enjoyed great success as a cross country runner at Stuyvesant is sophomore Baird Johnson, who had DiSarno as his cross country coach when he attended Wagner middle school and is proud to have him again. “Coach DiSarno is an enthusiastic, upbeat, even-keeled leader,” he said. “He meets each runner where they are and helps them get [to] where they want to be. He was a collegiate runner, and the experience he brings to Stuyvesant will help mitigate the loss of USATF Hall of Fame Coach Mark Mendes.”

Remarkably, DiSarno has seamlessly been able to navigate coaching both the Stuyvesant and the Wagner cross country teams. In order to be able to focus on coaching one team at a time, he continues to coach the Wagner cross country team on the two afternoons the team practices and coaches the Greyducks the other afternoons. On the two days DiSarno coaches the Wagner team, the Greyducks practice with their longstanding assistant coach and Stuyvesant statistics teacher Bernard Feigenbaum. During those two days, the Greyducks run downtown, where they are “running easy miles to strengthen their legs and build their stamina,” according to DiSarno. The Greyducks run the other three days in Central Park, where they focus on improving their speed and hill-running ability. The change in pace between training in Central Park and running downtown has helped the Greyducks gain further strength and agility.

When asked about the difference between coaching the middle school and the high school cross country teams, DiSarno’s sense of humor readily emerges: “There’s a lot less whining with high school runners, but there’s definitely more enthusiasm with middle school kids.”

Looking at the current team, DiSarno noted that because the Greyducks’ top three runners—Kiyan Tavangar, Greg Dudick and Harvey Ng—graduated in 2017, “matching last year’s success won’t be easy.” In addition, while the Greyducks have won two PSAL championships in a row, PSAL and Milesplit.com have picked the team to finish anywhere between fifth and seventh this season. DiSarno has “tried to use those predictions as motivation for the boys.” “I don’t know if we will have a front-runner this year, so it will be important to run as a pack and finish as closely to one another as possible. It’s not the easiest way to win a championship, but it certainly can be done,” he said.

But to the Greyducks’ new head coach, the team’s success this year will not be solely defined by attaining another championship. Rather, the team’s success will be defined by what DiSarno views as his coaching philosophy. “I’ve tried to let the boys know that I can only take them so far. They have to take ownership of their training if they are going to get faster and if we are going to have success as a team. Team goals aside, if every boy runs faster at the end of the season than he did at the start, then we can call that a success. And that will happen if we run as a team, pushing one another to do better.”

Senior and co-captain, Minhein Htet, echoed that DiSarno’s goal is for the runners to “[b]uild a good base and then build speed.” Htet also noted that while DiSarno “is much less intimidating than Mendes,” he “allows the captains a fair bit of autonomy, just like Mendes.”

For now, the Greyducks are training hard and hoping not only to continue the team’s winning streak, but also to improve their personal best with a faster time under the the guidance of their two coaches. While DiSarno humbly adds that he is “honored to take over such a prestigious program,” it is clear that the Greyducks are also honored to have him as their new head cross country coach.