Lou Giani Steps Down as Blue Devil Head Coach
After four decades as Huntington High School’s head wrestling coach, Lou Giani is stepping down and becoming a part-time assistant. Kieran Mock, who won the 1982 state championship for the Blue Devils under Giani will take over the program.
Giani had been thinking about stepping down for several years, but wanted to rebuild the team after it was decimated by graduation following the 2005 season. Last year, Huntington went 10-0, winning the Suffolk League V dual meet crown. Damon McQueen, Jose Vasquez and Dashaun Thomas all won All-State honors to cap off a fine winter.
Mock has been on the high school staff since the 2002-03 season. In addition to Giani, he will be assisted by Travis Smith and Peter Fusco. Each of the coaches was appointed to their posts by the Huntington School Board at its meeting on Monday night.
While Giani still enjoys coaching, he wanted to cut back on the grueling schedule he has kept while serving as head coach. He typically stays in the wrestling room or his office until 8 p.m., studying film and working out line-ups for upcoming meets. The many trips to upstate tournaments, the off-season training and the administrative demands of the position came to take up an inordinate amount of time.
Giani is regarded by many as the greatest high school wrestling coach in state history, and one of the top coaches in the country. The local legend was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma five years ago, one of just a handful of high school coaches to be enshrined.
Giani graduated in Huntington’s Class of 1953. As a senior, he won the 141 lb. Suffolk wrestling championship and went on to capture a Pan Am Games gold medal and a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. He later earned undergraduate and graduate degrees at C.W. Post and Adelphi, respectively. For many years he served as a physical education teacher in the district.
Five of Giani’s Huntington teams have won New York State Intersectional Tournament championships. In 2002, Huntington became only the fourth team in the 43-year history of the state tournament up to that point to have three state champions in one year. Since 1990, Huntington has had 29 individual Suffolk champions and 13 second place finishers.
After a 19-year career with the Grumman Aerospace Corporation during which Giani rose to Group Leader on the Lunar Escape Module (LEM) project for NASA, he took on teaching and coaching and has left a trail of greatness. He was the first Suffolk County champion from Huntington High School, his son, Lou, Jr., was Huntington’s first state champion and his other son, Joseph (now a Huntington assistant superintendent) was the school’s first NCAA mat champion.
Giani’s coaching accomplishments include:
- A career coaching mark in 40 seasons of 436-36-1.
- A league dual meet record of 230-15.
- A Suffolk record 188 All-County wrestlers.
- A state record 23 state champs and 53 all-state wrestlers.
- 28 Undefeated seasons.
- Nine Suffolk County team championships.
- A Suffolk record 117 invitational tournament championships.
- A record 61 individual Suffolk County champions.
- Nine of his teams have won New York State championships. (Six state tournament – five public, one private - and three first place state poll rankings.)
- 63 state tournament qualifiers.
- Member, New York State Wrestling Hall of Fame.
- Member, Suffolk County Sports Hall of Fame
On three separate occasions Giani has been chosen as the National High School Wrestling Coach of the Year, most recently in 2002 by the National Wrestling Coaches Association. In every single area of wrestling by which greatness is judged, Giani has produced impressive results.
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