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E-mail This StoryArt Senato finds himself in a unique situation taking over Marcus’ baseball program.
Senato, 39, who only needs approval of the Lewisville ISD Board of Trustess, usually is hired to turn around a losing program. That’s not the case at Marcus.
In the past four seasons, the Marauders have made the playoffs twice and posted an overall record of 89-41. Former coach Frank Chumbley, who led Marcus to three consecutive 20-win seasons, resigned earlier this month.
“I never played against Marcus but I know about the tradition of the baseball program,” Senato said. “This is like a dream job for me. The bar at Marcus should be set at not if we are going to make the playoffs but how far are we going to go. I think it is an elite program.”
Senato comes to Marcus after a successful two-year stint at Mansfield Summit. This season, the Jaguars went 23-9 while advancing to the area round of the playoffs. Summit went 12-4 in District 4-5A, winning the school’s first district title in baseball.
Before taking over at Summit, Senato spent two-year stints at DeSoto and Arlington Bowie. While at Bowie, he led the Volunteers to the playoffs and their highest finish ever in district.
Senato spent the first six years of his head coaching career at private school. In five seasons at Fort Worth Nolan Catholic, he led the Vikings to the TAPPS state title game twice. He also guided Irving Cistercian to the playoffs.
Senato played college baseball at North Lake College and Texas Wesleyan. In high school he played at Arlington Sam Houston
Lewisville ISD Athletic Director Randy Mayes said 35 head coaches applied for the opening along with a number of assistant coaches. From that list the search committee of Mayes, Marcus principal Gary Shafferman, Marcus boys athletic coordinator Bryan Erwin and Marcus assistant principal Leigh Ann Lewis culled that list to seven.
The seven interviewed included three local coaches, three from Houston and one from West Texas.
“We wanted to make sure our choice was a good fit for the Marcus community,” Mayes said. “At all of his public school stops coach Senato has won at it. I thought he had pretty good vision of why kids play the game at this level.”
Senato said he stresses three things to his players — hard work, hustle and having fun.
“Sometimes people think that if you are working hard you can’t have fun, but you can,” Senato said. “I try to keep things simple. I want to try to play to my players strengths. I’m still evolving as a coach. I’m always looking for ways to improve my coaching ability and help my players.”
