XC, track trailblazer Albert Caruana steps down at Crystal

Caruana, 54, will remain on staff at Crystal Springs as a physical education teacher.

“Coaching’s hard,” Caruana said. “It’s a big-time commitment. It’s a lot of time investment and at some point when you’re a teacher, some teachers stop teaching to coach, and some coaches stop coaching and teach.

“People have talked me and I tell them: ‘I’m totally fine. It’s my decision,’” he said.

The WBAL running world endured a shock last season when longtime Menlo School head coach Jorge Chen left the track program midseason, one year after being named the National Federation of High Schools Associations 2024 Coach of the Year for track and field. Chen was hired as an assistant coach by Harker later in the spring, and was named the head coach of Harker’s cross country and track teams this season.

Chen is one of Caruana’s former athletes, having run for him as a senior at San Mateo High School in 1992. Caruana coached various sports at Burlingame, Half Moon Bay and Westmoor before taking over the program at San Mateo while the school was still mourning the sudden passing of longtime coach Don Dooley, who died suddenly in May 1992.

“I still call him Coach Car to this day,” Chen said. “It was really big shoes to fill, and Coach Car did a really good job just filling those shoes.”

Caruana and Chen went on to coach at rival WBAL schools for many years. Menlo went on to win the CIF Division V boys’ cross-country championship in the fall of 2024 in what would be Chen’s last full season at the school. Prior to that, Crystal won back-to-back CIF Division V boys’ and girls’ state championships, giving Caruana’s teams four state championships. Kaiya Brooks also won the individual Division V girls’ state championship in 2022.

“Huge amount of credit to Albert,” Martinez said. “I think it’s really a testament to that. The state championships are testament to his whole coaching career and work done over a number of decades.

“It doesn’t happen without Albert,” he said, “the program he built and the legacy he built over decades.”

Caruana was hired as Crystal’s cross-country coach in 1996, and founded the Hillsborough private school’s track team in 2002. Katie Scangos was the program’s first runner to reach the CIF state cross-country podium as an eighth-place finisher in Division V in 1997. Nick Neely became the first cross-country runner for the boys’ team to medal with a second-place finish in Division V in 2002.

The 2005 Crystal girls team then reached the podium, taking second place in Division V. The Crystal girls reached the podium four times in Division V before the program’s back-to-back state crowns.

“I think you have to have a good program in place and we were very fortunate to have a very good group of kids, and we had a good group of coaches that worked well together,” Caruana said. “You also have to be fortunate. You have to stay healthy and run well on the right day.”

Crystal graduated a legendary senior class in the spring, including one of the best boys’ runners in the program history in Benjamin Bouie, whose senior season culminated in two Central Coast Section track championships (the 1,600 meter, and the 4x800 relay) and a second-place finish in the boys’ 1,600 at the CIF State Track and Field Championships.

Caruana said his stepping down as coach wasn’t directly related to Bouie and the deep senior class graduating.

“There’s never a good time to leave,” Caruana said. “There’s always going to be some athletes and parents who, they want you to keep coaching. But you just kind of have to make a decision and go from there.”

Crystal returns a strong girls’ team this year. When the Gryphons take the course Saturday at Golden Gate Park for the season-opening Lowell Invite, they will be fronted by senior Anna Salter, who took second in WBAL cross country last season, while finishing the school year with a third-place finishes for CCS track in the 1,600 to advance to the state meet.

“I think she’s going to have a really good season,” Caruana said. “She’s definitely one of the top runners in the state in our division. And the girls, they have a really good team. ... I think they’re going to have a very good chance to at least podium, if not win.”

Caruana said he will remain involved in the high school running scene. He still operates the popular blog Cross Country Express, founded in 2006, which has become read widely by running aficionados statewide. He said he doesn’t know if he’d consider returning to coaching in the future.

“I don’t know at this point,” Caruana said. “I mean, we’ll see. I’m still teaching here. I still have my blog and I’m still kind of involved in the sport.”

Crystal and Menlo were supplanted in the WBAL cross-country power structure last year when the Harker girls’ team emerged to win its first ever league championship — this in Chen’s first season with the program.

“CCS is going to take a hit because [Caruana] is no longer coaching,” Chen said. “He’s one of the few good ones left.”