Game day is one for emotion for Tiger FB coach

Caruthersville High School football coach Dom Guglielmo walks out onto the field with his team prior to playing at Charleston earlier this season.

Tom Davis ~ Tdavis@semoball.com

“Great moments are born from great opportunities.”

Former United States Olympic hockey coach Herb Brooks, the architect of the greatest upset victory in American sports, uttered that line to his athletes just prior to his team beating the monumentally favored Soviet Union in 1980, and no coach in Southeast Missouri grasps the emotion of that sentence more so than third-year Caruthersville High School football coach Dom Guglielmo.

Guglielmo grew up just a 90-mile jaunt from Lake Placid, New York, the site where that epic victory took place, so he has heard the stories, seen the sights, and knows the lore of the win. He also knows the emotion that Brooks and his United States players were feeling that historic day when few gave them a chance at victory, which is similar to what his Tigers will be feeling Friday.

Caruthersville (10-1) will travel to Valle Catholic (9-1) for the MSHSAA Class 2 District 1 Playoff championship at 7 p.m., and to state that Caruthersville is the underdog wouldn’t be doing the term “underdog” justice.

The Warriors finished second in the Class 2 State Playoff a year ago, the program’s 20th trip to the state title game, 15 of which, Valle Catholic has won.

In addition, the lone loss on the Tigers’ schedule this season was a 37-7 thumping that Valle Catholic laid on Caruthersville in Ste. Genevieve was in a driving rainstorm earlier this season.

Having said that, there will be no one on the field, or the sidelines, with more adrenaline flowing at kick-off than Guglielmo.

“I’m starting to get in the ‘Old Coach G’ mode, where I am getting just as fired up as the kids are,” Guglielmo said of his pre-game energy.

At 31 years of age, Guglielmo envisioned himself becoming a calm, cool, and collected head coach. However, being just a decade removed from his playing days at the high school and college levels, he hasn’t lost that feeling of NEEDING competition.

“I thought I would be an old head coach,” Guglielmo explained, “who stays calm, and doesn’t get fired up. That all went out the window.

“I still deep down, inside there, is a high school and college football player, when game day comes, my mind just switches to a place that only football players know. It’s like a euphoric feeling, almost.

C2D1 FB: Caruthersville shows 'swagger' with rout of East Prairie

Tom Davis

CARUTHERSVILLE -- Third-year Caruthersville High School football coach Dom Guglielmo has preached to his team this season that he wants "fast starts" on both sides of the ball, but the Tigers haven't always been able to do that.
In Friday's MSHSAA Class 2 District 1 semifinal win over East Prairie at Hopke Field, that wasn't an issue.

Friday's game should be different than the previous match-up, if for any other reason than the environment will be totally different for both teams.

The first game was played on a mud-soaked field that negated much of the speed attack that Caruthersville has relied upon this fall.

Being able to utilize the speed of senior Jermonte Alexander and junior Sammy Bryant offensively should be an advantage for the Tigers.

Caruthersville has not won a District championship since 2018, so the atmosphere will reek of a BIG game with a lot on the line.

“Even when you are away,” Guglielmo said, you walk out on the field, and you feel the air, and this is the life.

“It is the most addictive feeling when you walk out of the locker room to see your team take the field.”