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'Coach G' finds a home with, takes the reins of Caruthersville athletics
Monday, July 1, 2024
Caruthersville High School football coach Dom Guglielmo watches his team compete last season during a scrimmage at Dexter High School.
Tom Davis ~ Tdavis@semoball.com
Dom Guglielmo has traversed this country throughout his life being a “military kid and a football coach.” Two-plus years ago, he moved to Caruthersville to serve as a physical education teacher and varsity football coach, and he has seemingly found a home.
“When I moved here,” Guglielmo said of the winter of 2022, “the community welcomed me. I ingrained myself into the community early. I’ve made a lot of really good friends, who are now like family to me.”
That bond has taken another step in strengthening, as Guglielmo was recently named to serve as the Athletic Director at Caruthersville High School.
“This is like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Guglielmo said of securing the position.
Guglielmo has done a tremendous job guiding the Tigers’ football program in his two seasons. The program was staggering after losing its head coach early in the 2021 season, and a run of 12-plus winning seasons ended with a combined five wins in 2020 and 2021.
Guglielmo came into town and has led the program to 11 combined wins over the last two seasons, including seven in 2023.
“I think that there are a lot of good things going on at Caruthersville, especially athletically,” Guglielmo said. “The building is just populated with great athletes.”
That has shown in a lot of areas, as the Tigers not only had success in football during the last school year, but won 14 games in boy’s basketball, improved from two to 10 wins in softball, scored points at the MSHSAA Boy’s Track and Field State Finals, tripled its win total in volleyball from the previous season, and had its most successful baseball season in seven springs.
“Right now,” Guglielmo explained, “we’re in a really good stride of improving in all of our sports.”
The history of Caruthersville High School athletically is “storied,” according to Guglielmo.
He cited the eight times that the Tiger boy’s and girl’s track and field squads either won state championships or finished in the top four at the state finals.
His football program has won a state title, as well as 18 conference championships and 22 District championships while the boy’s basketball program has had no shortage of success through the years.
“The championship mentality throughout the athletic program,” Guglielmo said, “is an honor.”
Guglielmo will continue to teach and coach, as well as take on his new duties, and the “the actual AD duties, I’m more excited about them than worried about them.”
Guglielmo said that he “goes to all of the sporting events anyway,” so supervising the contests won’t be anything new to him. In addition, recently hired Caruthersville High Principal Stacy Bradshaw has served as the Tigers’ Athletic Director for the past eight years and is in the building for Guglielmo to bounce ideas off of.
“That will help a ton,” Guglielmo said. “He is right there if I need anything.”
Guglielmo, who calls upstate New York home, is forming some roots in the Bootheel despite initial concerns that “there wasn’t even a Wal-Mart here.”
“The people in town are what makes Caruthersville what it is,” Guglielmo said. “They can make any outsider feel like you have been there forever.
“There are days where I feel like I have been here forever.”