Girls varsity soccer head coach Gino Miraglia has been the head coach of girls varsity soccer at Haven since 2006, and this year has been honored with the 2024-25 PIAA girls varsity soccer coach of the year award, after winning the first state championship for the team since 2002. 

The award is given based on impact on the sports program, team success, commitment, and outstanding sportsmanship. 

Miraglia has been coaching sports alongside teaching since he came out of college. His first coaching and teaching job was in New Jersey in 2000.

He had first served on the Haven girls soccer team as the assistant coach, and after filling in for the head coach that season, he was able to secure the head coaching position in 2006. 

Miraglia’s Italian roots contribute to his deep love for soccer, and is one of the reasons he coaches the sport. 

“I’ve played soccer my entire life, so I just wanted to stay connected to soccer the whole time,” he said. “Growing up it was 24/7, everywhere, in my blood, and I guess I just wanted to continue with it.”

Through his coaching, he’s found success in focusing on his players, and getting to know them. 

“I think coaching has taught me to take a step back. It doesn’t always have to be soccer one hundred percent of the time, but to just get to know the girls first,” he said. 

In 2022, the success he has achieved through this coaching style was emphasized, reaching his 200th career win as head coach of the girls soccer team. 

“He [Miraglia] makes the environment super stress free,” senior team captain Ruby Lane said. “We’re always cracking jokes with him… He knows, if we’re down on energy, how to bring it up and get us out of our heads.” 

Harboring an environment in which mistakes can be made and learned from has brought fruitful results. The team ended 14-3-2 this season, with a win rate of 73%. 

As great as it is to foster a healthy learning environment in sports, it can often be a challenge with players coming and going, on top of being a losing team. 

“It took a while. When I first took over, there was a lot of tougher personalities,” Miraglia said. “It took a good two or three years of cleansing and sacrificing some wins and stuff to try and establish the culture that we wanted.” 

Miraglia has been a Spanish teacher at Haven for over a decade. Balancing teaching with coaching a healthy, winning team has overlap and some challenges. 

“For me, it’s hand and hand. The soccer field is an extension of the classroom for me. I try to keep the same values and expectations that I have in the classroom out in the soccer field,” he said. 

He also has students in class that are on the soccer team, making it challenging sometimes to teach when his players want to talk about soccer. 

The future in regards to coaching is uncertain for Miraglia, but he’s grateful for his coaching career at Haven this far. 

“At this point in my career, I don’t know if there’s any long term goals,” he said. “I don’t know how many years I have left. But I’m just enjoying every single moment I have right now…I just hope that whoever follows me just keeps kind of the same tradition and culture that we’ve built.”