Rye High’s Dino Garr Enters 50th Year as Football Coach

Coaching Rye is an occasional feature to meet the people that coach the student athletes of Rye. Often teachers as well, these coaches spend afternoons, evenings and weekends on fields, courts, courses and other venues helping our athletes be their best.

Today, meet Dino Garr, long-time head coach for the Rye High School Football Team. Garr is entering his 50th year as a head high school football coach, his 44th with the Garnets, this fall of 2025.

Do you have feedback or suggestions? Tell us.

Your name: Dino Garr

Your Team: Head Coach of the Football Team

MyRye.com: When did you begin coaching?

Garr: My first two years coming out of college, I was at Iona University. I coached there for a year, and then I coached another year as the whole staff went to Fordham University the following year. In ’73-’74 I came back to Rye as an assistant defensive coordinator. I became the head coach of the Garnets in ’76. This will be my 50th year coaching.

Do you coach any other teams?

Garr: I coached the varsity baseball team for 21 years I think from 1981 to 2001 or 2002. Actually, I was helping out Lou Drago, who was one of my high school coaches. And then I went to college, came back, and he was the head coach. He got sick, and he asked me to help him out, and I helped him out and ended up taking over the job. The high school gym is named after Drago. He is one of the people that had a tremendous impact on a lot of young men, me included. He was my gym teacher, along with George Maier. Those guys really had tremendous impact on my career. And then when I came back and started teaching, Drago was on my staff as the offensive line coach when I became head coach. We worked together for a long time before he got ill. He sadly got cancer and passed away.

Can you tell me a little bit more about your playing days, both in high school and in college?

Garr: In high school, I played both football and baseball. I was captain of the baseball team. I actually went to school on a baseball scholarship out in South Dakota. We won our section and we won the open in my junior year. I was on the football team for three years.

Who was the coach or mentor that shaped your own philosophy, and how? 

Garr: The person who had probably the biggest impact on my life was George Maier, who was the assistant coach at Rye and then became the assistant coach at Iona and head coach at Iona. We were lifelong friends until he passed away. When I first came to Rye, when I was in ninth grade, I had came from Resurrection. I think I was one of the few people who went not to Catholic school, but went to Rye High School [out of Resurrection]. And having come from a single parent, George Maier took me under his wing as a ninth grader, and kind of got me along. I have had a great, great career with a lot of coaches in Rye, but George probably had the greatest impact. He was like a father figure for me. He took a little guy who never played football, and said, you know, you could do it. And he wasn’t very big himself, but he went on, he was a great athlete at Springfield. And so, you know, he encouraged me in all the positive ways. He encouraged me to play handball. He encouraged me to be involved with being a good student. I needed some father direction, and he did that for me.

What makes a great student athlete in Rye?

Garr: I was fortunate enough to become a head coach at Rye. My goal has always been, and continues to be, to carry on the great tradition that Rye has had. And when you say student athlete, that was kind of always the expectations at Rye. I was a part of that. And so my goal as a coach to make sure that these student athletes have high expectations for themselves. They come from parents who have high expectations that they get the best out of themselves, and by doing that, they have to obviously learn the most important aspects, which are being committed to a program, being selfless, and being great teammates. And that’s basically the most important part of what our program has to be. We’ve been very fortunate to have had great student athletes all the time in terms of winning outstanding awards that are tied to athletics. I think every year since I’ve been here, we’ve had at least one student student athlete go on to the golden dozen, or at be least honorable mention.

Is there a favorite football team tradition or chant or saying you have that others might not understand?

Garr: We have our own. It’s pretty much common coach’s speak. But the bottom line is that we want to find it and try to get the best out of ourselves. So what we say all the time is, “How good do you want to be?”. And the answer is pretty easy. They always say “The best.” That’s our goal, to work at that. That’s that’s something that we that we really try to strive for. Obviously, you can’t be the best all the time, but you can strive to do that, and that means not only in playing football, but in your character and how you are with your teammates and your family and the community.

Is there any stat that does not show up in a traditional box score that means a lot to you?

Garr: I’m not big on stats. Matter of fact, I think I’m probably the worst coach when it comes to telling you how many players have had 1,000 yards rushing or receiving because we don’t like this kind of distraction from the idea of us being a team. The stats that we take those pride in, for me is that we, we play hard, we play smart, and we and we play the best we can. There’s no stats for me.

Individually, how do you reset after a tough loss?

Garr: You have to learn. Losing means that you did certain things not as well as you would have liked in practice, which means that you have to come back and learn from that. Even when you win, sometimes you have to look at it and be thankful that you won, but recognize the mistakes you made. When you lose a tough game, you’ve got to put it behind you, but learn from what made you lose. Fortunately, we’ve been able to do that quite a bit and never get into a long losing streak. Losing is because the other team has done better – why have they done better? That’s something that we have to look at and try to figure out how we can correct those mistakes.

What is the most unforgettable moment from your career?

Garr: My first loss as head coach in 1976. We were fortunate enough to be undefeated and go into ‘The Game’ against Harrison, who was also undefeated. It was a big rivalry, and we ended up losing 15-12. As I said, you have to learn from losing. So that was our first tough loss. It was my first loss against Harrison. It’s kind of driven me to continue to get better all the time.

Thanks Coach!

Publisher’s Note: Also read: Rye Lifer: Dino Garr.