Sal was born in East Northport, NY, and moved to Florida in 1977.  Eventually settling in Spring Hill, Sal attended Springstead High School and started wrestling his Junior year for Hall of Fame coach Bob Levija (Class of 2007)                                                                                                                                                                         

He was an assistant coach under Bob from 1995-1999 when he stepped away from wrestling to focus on his family and earning state championships with the Springstead HS Drumline.  He returned to coaching in 2004 as an assistant under Head Coach Eric Swensen and in 2013, took over as head coach when Coach Swensen and his family moved to Minnesota.                                                                                                                                     

In 2015, Sal and his family moved to Tampa where he took over as head coach of Jesuit High School and he remains the head coach there today.  Sal also feels very lucky that all three of his sons also fell in love with the sport and he was able to coach them through their high school careers.  Ethan is a two-time state champ and currently wrestles at the University of Northern Iowa under Olympian Doug Schwab; Braden is a three-time state champ and currently wrestles for the United States Military Academy at West Point under Kevin Ward, and was an NCAA qualifier this year; Mason is about to start his sophomore year at Jesuit HS where he finished his freshman season with a 3rd place finish at states.                                                                                                                          

Sal has spent 25 years coaching youth and high school wrestling and over those years, has garnered several accolades.  He was:

—NWCA Coach of the Year for 2010-11

—USA Wrestling Assistant Coach of the Year in 2011

—Hernando County Coach of the Year 2013, 2014, and 2015

—Florida Dairy Farmers’ Coach of the Year in 2013, 2019, 2022, and 2024

—NFHS Coach of the Year for 2018-19

—The Joel Medgebow Coach of the Year (Hillsborough County) in 2019-20                                                           

During his 25 years as an assistant and head coach, his teams have earned the top spot on the podium five times: FHSAA State Champs in 2011, 2012, 2013 at Springstead, and 2022 and 2024 at Jesuit.  Four times, they have been runners-up 2010, 2015 (Springstead) and 2019 and 2020 (Jesuit).  In 2020, Jesuit were the Dual State Champs and in 2024, they were the runners up.

Overall, Sal has coached 52 individual FHSAA State Champions and 116 FHSAA State Placers – and he’s not finished yet!