Hall of Fame
In more than three decades of success at both the high school and collegiate levels, Frank Gramarosso has proven to be both a master of transition and model of consistency, aiding multitudes of young men in their pursuit of excellence in cross country and track and field.
His maturation as a coach began during his tenure as a student-athlete at Northwestern University. He earned All-Big Ten Conference honors in the 3,000-meter steeplechase before graduating with a bachelor’s degree in health and physical education in 1975. “I accepted a scholarship late in the summer, and the only school at the university that had an opening was the school of education,” Gramarosso said. “I had never thought about wanting to be a teacher, but I had an interest in coaching and I knew teaching was part of that.”
Gramarosso began his coaching career at Glenbard East High School in Lombard, coaching sprinters and relay teams. He then moved on to Eisenhower High School in Blue Island, where he eventually took over as head coach of both the boys’ cross country and track and field programs. He led Eisenhower to a runner-up finish at the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) Class AA Boys’ State Track and Field Championships in 1981, earning the Northern Illinois Track and Cross Country Coaching Association’s Track Coach of the Year award, before stepping down as coach due to a change in his teaching position at the school.
“I was helping as a volunteer recruiter at Northwestern, where my coach was still active,” he recalled. “I lived in Lisle and had started coming to North Central to work out with Al (Carius). In November 1982, my coach at Northwestern told me he was retiring. Al’s name was floated around as a possible replacement, but in December he told me he was staying at North Central and he asked me to come coach with him.” After three years as a part-time assistant coach, Gramarosso was brought on as a fulltime coach and professor in the College’s health and physical education department prior to the 1985-1986 academic year.
His impact was felt soon thereafter, as the Cardinals won a NCAA Division III National Championship in cross country in 1987, the seventh in the team’s history, before sweeping the Indoor and Outdoor Track and Field National Championships in 1989 to post the program’s first titles at both meets. “That was our goal in the ‘80s,” he said. “Al wanted to do in track and field what they had done in cross country, and it started with building a staff that could handle all the different disciplines of track and field.”
Gramarosso played a role in 11 additional team national titles before taking over as head coach of the track and field program prior to the 2010-2011 academic year. He guided the Cardinals to indoor and outdoor national titles for the second straight year, earning National Head Coach of the Year honors from the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTCCCA) in both seasons. The Cardinals won the indoor national championship once again in 2012, marking the 18th national title in his tenure as a full-time coach. “Really, (winning in 2011) mirrored the 1989 season when we first won,” he said. “Being the head coach and having the staff and athletes we had, it was satisfying. But whether you’re an assistant coach or associate coach or head coach, everyone knows the contributions they’ve made.”
Gramarosso has coached 167 College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) individual champions, as well as 159 Division III All-Americans, and athletes under his direction have won six individual and relay national titles. He has primarily coached sprinters, but has also directed All-American athletes in the decathlon and pole vault.
“There are not a lot of programs that have the things we have,” he said. “In terms of Division III institutions, there is no other place that has the support I’ve felt we have.”
