After thirteen years as a special education teacher, Michael Mocerino is now the new athletic director at Algonquin.

Mocerino, an Algonquin alum and former University of Connecticut baseball player, has bounced around since graduating college.

“When I left UConn, I was lucky enough to get about a year and a half to two years of college baseball coaching experience at Assumption and a brief stint at Bryant,” Mocerino said. “After I left there, I was lucky enough to come back and coach the Northborough American Legion team when I accepted a job in the special education department in 2006.”

As the varsity baseball coach and assistant varsity basketball coach, Mocerino always had the athletic director job in mind.

“I love athletics, coaching, teaching, mentoring, and being involved, so at some point in time, I knew that with coaching being my passion, I always knew that being the director of athletics always had a place where I would strive to be at,” Mocerino said.

As the new athletic director, Mocerino is in charge of overseeing all the sports teams at Algonquin.

“Although I cannot coach a specific sport like basketball or baseball, I get to be involved with fifty other sports and get to watch every single kid continue to grow from their freshman year on up,” Mocerino said. “I want to be an outlet or a resource for any of these athletes that are gonna look to me if they need guidance, any transition, or be a positive influence for every athlete that’s here at Algonquin.”

So far, Mocerino believes the year has started off strong due to the support from students and staff.

“It’s been a great start to the year,” Mocerino said. “I think the student athletes, coaching staff, administration, and community have all been wonderful to work with and have been very supportive. We are working extremely hard to ensure the students have every opportunity to succeed and we will continue that.”

Athletic administrative assistant Susan Baburins believes Mocerino is thriving in his new role.

“Working with Mr. Mocerino has been great,” Baburins said. “Having been in the school for such a long time…he fit right in. I do my job and he does his, so we work well together.”

Mocerino feels the athletic department is in good shape, but he has long term goals to boost the success of the program even more.

“We are going to continue to promote leadership through athletic council, collaborate on community service and fundraising with athletes in motion, and work with the booster club organization who shows tremendous support for all of our athletes,” Mocerino said. “I want to continue working with administration and always spread awareness about the importance of health and safety.