Sebby Amato returns to coaching at Trinity College

Sebby Amato is returning to coach at Trinity College again after a 14-year absence. (Photo courtesy Trinity College athletics)

HARTFORD, July 16 – After a 14-year absence, Sebby Amato is back at Trinity College.

The Bantams announced the hiring of Amato as their new head coach. Amato coached Trinity for 19 years before retiring from coaching in 2005. Amato replaces Marques Gales, who left Trinity after six seasons in May to become the head wrestling coach at Sacramento City College in California.

“We are delighted to welcome Sebby Amato back to campus,” said Drew Galbraith, director of Athletics at Trinity. “Coach Amato’s competitiveness, grit and tireless focus on developing the young men in the program will be a great match for current and future Bantams. We fully expect he will return the wrestling program to the levels of success the team saw in his first stint at Trinity.”

Amato coached Trinity to over 150 wins in dual matches from 1987 to 2005 and posted a 114-68-1 mark (.626) over his last eight seasons with the Bantams. In 2000-01, Amato was the New England Coach of the Year, as the Bantams captured Trinity’s only NECCWA (now NEWA) championship.

Trinity posted a best-ever record of 23-3, finished second in the NECCWA Championships, and won the NECCWA Duals title in 2002-03, earning the right to represent the conference in the National Collegiate Wrestling Association (NCWA) Duals Championships the following winter.  Amato had over 50 All-New England honorees and 10 All-Americans in his first stint at Trinity.

“I want to thank Athletic Director Drew Galbraith for this opportunity to return to coaching at Trinity.  I love the sport of wrestling and I grew to love Trinity College over my first 19 years there,” said Amato.  “I left coaching to watch my kids grow up, and I have stayed active in wrestling as a youth coach and a parent until two years ago when my son graduated from WPI as an All-American.”

A successful amateur wrestler, Amato brings a vast amount of knowledge and experience to the Bantam wrestling program.

Amato attended Western New England College in Springfield, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business marketing and captained the wrestling teams in his junior and senior years. Competing at 142 pounds, he won a New England Championship title (1984) and competed in a national tournament three times – once at the NAIA national tournament and twice at the NCAA Division III national championships.

In high school, Amato wrestled at Pulaski High in New Britain, winning a Class S title in 1980 and helping the Generals win two state championships.

Prior to Trinity, Amato served as an assistant coach at both Wesleyan University and Central Connecticut State University.

“Coach Gales did a great job bringing the program back to relevancy, and I want to continue rebuilding an atmosphere at Trinity where the guys just love to come to practice and to meets,” Amato added.

“We will have a diverse coaching staff with varying styles, and the wrestlers can take what works for them from all of us,” Amato said. “My children are grown now and my wife is 100 percent on board with this decision.  When I came back to campus, it truly felt like I had never left.  I am so excited to get started.”

In 2018-19, Trinity posted three top 10 finishes against high-level competition in tournaments at Springfield College, Waynesburg College, and Johnson and Wales University in Rhode Island. The Bantams also placed seventh in the Headlock for Hunger NEWA Duals Championship Tournament and closed the year with a 14th-place finish in the NCAA Division III Northeast Regional championships.

Amato is a member of the NECCWA (New England Collegiate Conference Wrestling Association) Hall of Fame, the Western New England University Athletic Hall of Fame, and the New Britain Athletic Hall of Fame.