Manatee’s Gugliemini heads to Germany to train officials

Andrew Gugliemini, the always-on, ever-excitable Manatee High School wrestling coach and high school football official, is going to Germany to represent and serve his country.

To him, it sounds even stranger when he says it out loud.

“It’s all me, man,” Gugliemini said. “They’re bringing Andrew Gugliemini in from Florida to coach in Germany.”

For three-and-a-half days next week, Gugliemini will run a clinic for prospective football officials at Lucius D. Clay Kaserne, a United States military base in Wiesbaden, on behalf of the United States Department of Defense and USA Football, the national governing body of youth football in the U.S. Gugliemini will be alone in his instruction, spending three days in the classroom beginning Tuesday and a fourth half day on the field teaching about 20 referees how to officiate games for children on military bases across Germany.

USA Football’s decision to send Gugliemini overseas to run such a program stands up with any of the accolades he has received as an official, which includes being honored as the Florida High School Athletic Association’s football official of the year in 2013.

To get there, though, Gugliemini needed an assist from Saint Stephen’s head football coach Tod Creneti.

“I’m just very thankful that Tod spoke up,” said Gugliemini. “I was just in the right place at the right time, and thank you Tod Creneti for thinking highly of me.”

Creneti has been heavily involved in USA Football’s Heads Up Football player safety program. And when USA Football needed to find an official, Chris Merritt, who previously coached with the U.S. national team and is the head coach at Miami Columbus, asked Creneti if he had anyone in mind he could reach out to.

Gugliemini had been a fixture on the field at Falcons games during Creneti’s first couple of years with Saint Stephen’s, so the head coach knew Gugliemini was qualified from that standpoint. He’s a teacher and accomplished head coach, too, so Creneti knew he wouldn’t have trouble putting together lessons. But most importantly, Gugliemini is famously enthusiastic.

“One of the things that’s really important with a guy like that is that he has a tremendous passion for what he does. Any time you’re talking about education, and coach education and youth education, you want people who are passionate about what they’re talking about,” Creneti said. “This guy loves what he does as an official probably more than anyone I’ve ever met.”

It’s his enthusiasm which has kept Gugliemini prowling sidelines and football fields as an official for nearly 30 years. He volunteers with Heads Up Football and works with the Positive Coaching Alliance.

Every Friday during the fall, he takes a break from thinking about wrestling to indulge his other passion and steps on to a field somewhere in the Tampa Bay area. Next week, he’ll get a chance to share that passion abroad.

Gugliemini will fly to Hamburg on Sunday, which will give him a little bit of time to be a tourist before a number of long days in the classroom and out on the field. He is most excited for the half day on the field where he’ll get to lead by example and get a sense of what American football is like in a country where only small pockets care about it.

“I really think that’s where I do my best work, on the field,” Gugliemini said. “But, obviously, me being a teacher and a coach I can instruct, and I can speak and get the points across in the classroom, as well.”

In a storied career as both a wrestling coach and football official, this is a unique honor for Gugliemini. USA Football could have looked anywhere across the country for its latest instructor and they chose to look in Bradenton.

“This is just a completely different honor,” Gugliemini said. “For someone to believe that you have the ability to go do that — it doesn’t happen to everyone, so I’ve got to be happy and honored that they’re allowing me to do this.”

This story was originally published July 13, 2017 at 9:03 PM with the headline "Manatee’s Gugliemini heads to Germany to train officials."