Tri-sport coach and Algebra-2 teacher Mr. Frank Juliano has been at EHS for 22 years and coaching the girls golf team for ten.
Juliano’s sports career began early in his childhood and continued through high school and college. In his high school years, Juliano focused mainly on football and wrestling, which he later coached as a teacher. He attributes his dream of coaching to his youth.
“It was such a great experience for me when I was in high school,” he said. “It made me such a better person: responsibility, discipline, keeping a routine, also having coaches in my life guiding me in the right direction, and giving me things and tools that could help me succeed in life.”
In college, Juliano started golfing recreationally. Although he never aimed to do so competitively, he held on to his passion for the sport throughout his teaching career. However, his first encounter as a mentor for sports started elsewhere.
Juliano first began with coaching football, which had been his passion for a long time. Soon, he also took the opportunity to coach wrestling.
He started coaching girls golf later in his career, about 15 years after he first began coaching. As he enjoyed golfing in his free time, he seized the opportunity to lead the girls team at EHS since then.
As both a teacher and coach, Juliano balances a mix of work responsibilities and athletics.
“I don’t find it to be that difficult. We’re very fortunate as teachers. We come in early in the day, but we get out around midday. Having practiced from 2:30 to 5:00, 5:30, it is not much different from other people’s work hours. It’s just we have to come in a lot earlier,” said Juliano.
By staying up late, Juliano is able to get his schoolwork, such as grading, done at night. Despite the long nights, Juliano enjoys coaching as it gives him an opportunity to see students outside of the classroom and understand them better. The additional downtime allows him to better communicate with his athletes and appreciate what they are going through.
When coaching, Juliano’s philosophy is that the coach needs to adapt to what the athletes need.
“Sometimes, you have a really talented team, and you’re trying to push them harder and get them over the hump so that they can get even better,” he said. “Other times, you’re dealing with a team that’s maybe less talented, and they need more guidance and building up their confidence.”
With the girls golf team, Juliano uses a relatively relaxed approach. As many of the athletes are new to the sport, he believes that patience is necessary for the team to build their confidence and succeed. Last year, the team performed exceptionally well. The team was a mix of experienced athletes and seniors and had improved over their time on the team.
“Last year was our first year winning a division title. When I first started coaching the program, we struggled. It was tough to get even a couple of wins each year. We just didn’t have a lot of girls coming into Edison High School with experience golfing,” said Juliano. “It was a tough road, and to see the program get to a point where we could win a division title, it was very rewarding.”
