Former Greenwich football coach John Marinelli set to join UConn staff
GREENWICH, Conn. — Very few people have the opportunity to have a homecoming while at the same time doing what they love. Consider former Greenwich football head coach John Marinelli one of the lucky ones. The man who coached the Cardinals from 2015-19 is now returning to the nutmeg state as a member of a brand-new coaching staff at the University of Connecticut. None of the current member of UConn鈥檚 coaching staff will return to the Huskies in 2022 as the team looks to remodel itself after the football program returned in 2021. Marinelli played a big role in that.
Marinelli started his Connecticut coaching career at New Canaan High School as the offensive coordinator under his father Lou, who is regarded as a Connecticut football legend. Under the tutelage of the Marinelli boys from 2009-14, New Canaan won the state title three times. The younger Marinelli led one of the most efficient offenses in the state during his tenure with New Canaan. He then took over his own program in the fall of 2015 for the Greenwich Cardinals.
One of the more interesting things about Marinelli鈥檚 tenure as the lead man in Greenwich was that his program improved each of the four years he was at the front of the helm. After going just 4-5, Greenwich鈥檚 first losing season in decades, and missing the playoffs in year one of Marinelli鈥檚 tenure with the team, Greenwich went 7-4 and reached the state quarterfinals the next year in 2016.
The final two years of Marinelli鈥檚 tenure were like video games as the Cardinals combined to go 25-1, reaching the state final in both 2017 and 2018. In the ladder season, Marinelli and the Cardinals did their best 1972 Miami Dolphins impression by going undefeated (13-0) en route to the program鈥檚 first state title since 2007. After reaching the quasi-mountain top of high school athletics, Marinelli took his talent to the collegiate arena, getting hired as an offensive analyst at the University of Arizona in 2019 and then as a senior analyst at the University of Illinois this past season.
Now, Marinelli returns to Connecticut as the new Huskie tight end coach, hoping to instill the same type of culture at UConn that led to his success with Fairfield Country programs like Greenwich and New Canaan. Marinelli鈥檚 knowledge and awareness of the area should meet new UConn head coach Jim Mora鈥檚 intention to put a large emphasis on in-state recruiting.
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