Shortly after the baseball season ended, Mamaroneck High School’s very own Coach Mike Chiapparelli, or “Chap,” was named Coach of the Year by the National High School Baseball Coaches Association. This is a very special award to receive as a coach of high school sports. Coach Chiapparelli has spent countless years coaching for both the varsity baseball and hockey teams; he has led the teams to three New York State class AA baseball championships, an ice hockey Division I NY State Championship and an overall 12 Sectional Championships for both sports.
Along with his great success in coaching, he also helps the community in other ways by working with the special education students as a PE teacher. In regards to his service, Coach Chiapparelli says, “The community has supported me year in and year out. I give their kids a full effort every day by making them fine young men using the sport they love: baseball.”
The baseball team this past spring had an amazing season, going 17-2, with the only two games they lost being by one run and coming in as the number one seed of Class AA. While the players did a great amount of the work, Coach Chiapparelli was undoubtdly very deserving of his award, and it reminded members of the community about the importance of his role on the baseball team.
Oftentimes, viewers from the outside forget about the hard work that coaches put into the game, and this season Chiapparelli reminded the community of that. Although they had a strong season, the team felt very disappointed in their tough 1-0 loss in the section quarterfinals. Even though Chiapparelli had won such an important award after the season, the team was still grieving over their loss.
“We lost and my achievement was not important at that moment,” said Chiapparelli. Clearly a selfless coach willing to do anything for his team, he also stated, “ I was very humbled about the award, but would trade it for a section title for my players, coaches, and our community.”
Chiapperelli gives great credit to his own coach, Ken Demas, and his assistant coaches, Joe Glaser, Matt Porchelli, Don Novick, Bob Lowman, Bart Dinardo, and Mikey Chiapparelli. All in all, it is amazing to see how much success and support Coach Chipparelli has brought to the Larchmont-Mamaroneck community, and how he was able to translate this into such a prestigious award.
Now, Coach Chipparelli is focused on this upcoming season, where he is really looking forward to “traveling to the national tournament in Charleston, South Carolina and working with the 2022 baseball team in order to give them an opportunity to be section and state champions.” Hopefully, the baseball team will be even more successful this year and in the many years to come – MHS wishes the best of luck to them for this spring season!