Seven days before the track and field, while most teams were beginning practices and preparing for the season, Mrs. Sears was put in an impossible situation. Without a coach, the track and field team would not be able to compete in the upcoming season, and dozens of athletes would be sidelined. That was, until Coach Jaime Strunjo, a teacher at the Morgan School who has been with the district for the past eleven years, stepped up to save the season.
With Coach Jaime Serrano not returning and Coach Jordan Bean being forced into an extended medical leave by an achilles injury for the next nine months, the track and field team faced an uncertain season without a coach. The situation turned dire, as postings for the position began to be sent out almost every day by the athletic director, Mrs. Sears.
In desperation, even a track and field athlete, Demi Rehberg, sent an email out to all students and parents to try to find a coach, encouraging parents to step up.
Just one week before the season began, Coach Strunjo decided to lead the entire team solo. She did, however, feel prepared for the season due to the guidance of Coach Bean, a coach of indoor track and field last winter, who helped give her strategic insight and information on the sport.
“They kept putting out postings, and they didn’t get a head coach,” said Coach Strunjo. “I have coached other sports such as soccer before, and I’ve participated in track, and I wanted to make sure that all of the athletes had a season this year,” said Coach Strunjo.
She would soon realize, though, that it was not an easy sport to coach.
“It’s not just a single sport, there’s all the different events, and you’ve got your sprinters, your long distance, your throwers, your jumpers, and there’s all different events within those categories,” described Coach Strunjo.
To help make sure all events are covered, Coach Strunjo created four captains and four squad leaders. At the core of the team are the four captains: seniors Jacquelyn Ciarleglio, Owen Lombardi, and Addison Reed, along with junior Colton Landino. These captains help the team through warm-ups, team-building activities, workouts, and much more.
In addition to the captains are the four squad leaders, new to the program: junior, Demi Rehberg, for throwers, along with sophomores, Isabella Santello, for sprinters, Andrew Costanza, for distance runners, and Luca Strunjo, for jumpers.
The squad leader position is new to the team, and allows other experienced track and field athletes to help with their specialized section of events and assist the captains when needed. The two positions, captains and squad leaders, differ, as captains do more work for the team as a whole, while the squad leaders do more work centralized in their area of expertise.
Coach Strunjo has learned to rely on these captains and squad leaders to help lead and teach her more about the sport. This, in turn, has given more responsibility to the captains and squad leaders. In previous years, there have been up to eight captains, but Coach Strunjo found that to be too many, and found the addition of squad leaders to be a good compromise, inspired by the ideas of trying to help each section in track and field.
One captain, Addison Reed explained the new situation, “I’ve been on the team all four years, and we (the captains) kind of know what we’ve done in the past, and we’re doing our best to help the coach understand the traditions we’ve done every year, and to use our knowledge of the sport to help the rest of the people run their events.”
A four-year veteran of the track and field team, Reed is a very experienced track and field distance athlete at The Morgan School and has dealt with many problems over the past few seasons due to recent coach changes.
Two years ago, Coach Jared Stevens left for Old Saybrook, leaving Coach Serrano to take over. However, after one season, Coach Serrano ended up not returning. The inconsistent coaching has led to fluctuations in workouts and expectations. “It’s been hard having a new coach every year…there just hasn’t really been a coach that’s been there the whole time,” recounted Reed.
However, Reed has learned to adapt to Coach Strunjo and, together, find good workouts for the team. Reed explained that under Coach Strunjo, she, along with others, has been able to “create our own practices and goals,” which at times had been hard to do in previous seasons.
Fellow captain, Landino, a sprinter at the Morgan School, had a different take on the new freedom captains hold under Coach Strunjo. With nine of the thirty athletes on the track team being freshmen, Landino feels the new responsibility he now holds. He now has to take time during practice to “keep the younger kids in line” and help them understand the technique and requirements to do certain events that fall under his expertise. Though it takes time out of his practice, Landino likes this new change under Coach Strunjo.
Landino also struggles to emphasize the importance of track and field to the younger athletes. “I’m trying to help everybody understand that it’s, again, a varsity sport, and that is based on a point system…it’s not just fun and games all the time, it’s commitment and hard work,” said Landino.
Another key change that Coach Strunjo has made this season is posting videos of each event in the Google Classroom to help show athletes how to do certain events and good workouts for them. Landino, along with many others, likes this change. “She has posted lots of helpful videos, leaving it up to the kids to take the opportunity to watch them to help them get better,” explained Landino.
Nevertheless, the most important implementation of Coach Strunjo is the team mentality. Coach Strunjo finds teamwork to be a key component of track and field, though it is a very individual-based sport, if you have a team mentality, then I think you can overcome everything,” explained Coach Strunjo.
Team building activities have begun to be applied not just to practices, but also to the time before and after. Ice breakers such as “What’s your favorite movie?” and “What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?” have given athletes things to relate to and built a stronger team bond.
“The team knows each other’s names, everyone knows some things about each other, so that they can cheer each other on at meets, so I think that’s definitely something positive that’s different than the past years,” described Reed.
One athlete, junior Luke Rodriguez, from The Morgan School, is very invested in track and field, and loves the addition as well. Rodriguez had struggled over the past years due to the lack of knowledge from coaches about his events. Even so, Rodriguez continues to have a positive attitude toward new coaches and is especially happy with Coach Strunjo. “I think everyone’s kind of connected, no one’s really alone, and we’re all family here [on the track and field team],” shared Rodriguez about the new team mentality.
Though Coach Strunjo is new to coaching the sport, her background knowledge has allowed her to have a profound impact on the track and field team and promise a good season ahead. As Landino shared:
“It’s very different having a new coach, but I like her coaching style…she has a plan for everything and helps guide us [the track and field team] in the right direction.”
