Rye High School varsity football coach Dino Garr has a few lofty goals for this season, and beating rival Harrison High School and making it to the postseason are just a few of them.
“The Rye community and coaching staff always has high expectations, the players know that,” Garr told The Record. “The expectations are that they are to excel and get the best out of themselves, that’s a common goal. … But obviously our goal that we have this year is that we should try to beat Harrison, to win our league, to win the sectionals, and then to get ready for the playoffs.”
Garr and the varsity football squad are coming off a Class B state championship last year — the first for the team since 2008 — and a 12-2 winning record in the regular season. The team’s run for the state title is also the subject of a new 90-minute documentary titled “Garnet Pride, A Story of Legacy and Football,” which dropped on YouTube this summer. Filmmaker and Rye Record sports reporter Ian Colalucci directed and produced the documentary after following the team last season.
This year, however, the Garnets are back up to Class A and the team is down an above-average number of seniors.
But Garr is undeterred, noting that rising senior captains Jake Kessner, Patrick McGuire, Archer Fenton, Andrew Wilmarth, Chris Iuliano, and junior Carson Miller — as well as other rising juniors Nigel Strazzini, and Owen Saya — will be key to the team’s success this year.
“We graduated 24 seniors last year from our outstanding state championship team, so we have a lot of positions that have to be filled,” Garr said. “I think our six captains are probably the core new piece of that.”
Varsity football practice started on Aug. 24, and the Garnets are scheduled to open their season at home against Monsignor Farrell High School on Sept. 6.