By Rich Fisher |Correspondent

Steve Sciarappa is in his fourth year as both the principal and head football coach at Mater Dei Prep, New Monmouth. When asked if he should be addressed as principal or coach, the woman on the other end of the phone laughed.

“I think he’s in coach mode right now,” she said.

With good reason.

The Seraphs football team started the season 2-0 for the first time since 1986 and was unbeaten after two games for the first time since starting 1-0-1 in 1992. They are doing so with a 41-man roster and 75 percent of the players going both ways on offense and defense.

It’s all part of a five-year plan to turn around a moribund program. When Sciarappa took over in 2010, he declared that in the first four years he wanted the team to improve, be competitive and put themselves in a position to win some games. It is all building to next year when the coach hopes to compete for a state sectional championship.

The first three seasons produced records of 3-7, 1-9 and 1-9, so this year’s start has provided a new sense of excitement.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Sciarappa said. “The last five or six years here have been rebuilding and retooling and just going through a whole internal renaissance of who we are. You’re seeing some high profile athletic success that is kind of mirroring what we’re doing internally in the building.”

In a school with just 300 students, the football program struggled mightily. With 15 previous years of high school coaching experience, Sciarappa was asked to serve as varsity coach as well as the principal position he already had.

“I didn’t experience any negativity, but did experience a lot of bewilderment,” Sciarappa said with a laugh. “It was like, ‘Wait a minute, you’re going to do both?’” Sciarappa has effectively separated the two jobs. The reason for the unique move was to have someone in the building handling the coaches and players. The faculty staff size was limited, so multi-tasking was asked of Sciarappa and thenathletic director Gary Carmody, who served as an assistant.

A year earlier, Mater Dei had gone to a new curriculum that was a junior college model rather than a high school model.

“When we went into our first football meeting we told them we are going to run this like a college program so you will be ready for college,” said Sciarappa, who noted that former students Shane Sullivan, Jesse Meyer and Kevin Quinn have gone on to play college football.

Another benefit was starting a football program in neighboring, St. Mary Elementary School, Middletown, last season. Mater Dei athletic director Dennis Tobin serves as head coach.

“We have 15 freshmen,” Sciarappa noted. “A lot of them came in who already played football, and nine of them are from the St. Mary’s feeder system we started.”

As for the veterans, quarterback Christian Palmer, Matt Eckert and Sean Fraser are in their fourth year in the program and are just three of eight seniors on the roster.

“Christian Palmer is a real example of who we are and how we got here,” Sciarappa said. “He’s a great leader, a hard-nosed player. Coming out of St. Mary’s a lot of his buddies were going to Middletown but Christian said there was something special here at Mater Dei and he wanted to be part of it. Lots of his friends poohpoohed it.” They are pooh-poohing no more.