The Ultimate Leader: Marco Scarano '26

By Craig Sachson
PrincetonTigersFootball.com

There have been moments — some brief, some extended, some in the preseason and some in the last month — when the 2025 Princeton football season might have gotten away from the Tigers' control. In every instance, Marco Scarano has been there to help his teammates regain control.

Now he gets the opportunity to play for control in the Ivy League.

Princeton head coach Bob Surace has put Scarano in challenging positions both on and off the field because he holds the ultimate respect for the Connecticut native. From learning a new position in 72 hours to grabbing the reins of a team coming off its first losing season in more than a decade, Scarano has been everything this program seeks in a leader.

It's also everything Avon Old Farms seeks as a leader too.

• • •

The middle son of Sandra and Jason Scarano, Marco followed his older brother Dom to the gridiron at Brown High School. Dom was a captain for the team, and Marco knows he matured quicker than most simply by being around his brother and other older classmates. It served him well when he transferred to Avon Old Farms, a boarding school for boys in Avon, Conn.

"It was a big jump for me, leaving all my friends to go to a school that would hopefully get me a better chance to play college football," Scarano said. "It was a very strict boarding school, but it was the best thing for me. It was a very, very disciplining experience, and one of the best decisions I've ever made."

Scarano excelled on the field and would be named the NEPSAC Player and Defensive Player of the Year. He excelled off as well. Surace recalls meeting the Avon Old Farms head coach, who explained that they rank their players 1-5 on the leadership scale and still uses Scarano as the measure of the ultimate leader.

Nobody, he said, has reached the Scarano level.

"I have always tried to lead by example," Scarano said. "I do my best to be vocal, but I'm always trying to show guys what the standard is, and how to uphold that standard. If you are setting the example and playing well at the same time, the younger guys will look to you and realize that's what they need to do."

• • •

Scarano was recruited early by Princeton, and the relationships developed in the process helped drive the All-New England linebacker to Old Nassau. Similar to his early days at Brown HS, Scarano found inspiration from upperclassmen linebackers like Liam Johnson, Ozzie Nicholas, Will Perez and Matthew Jester, and he took something from all of them.

He looked like Perez and Jester early in his career. He found his home as an outside linebacker through much of his sophomore season, but injuries and illness left Princeton shorthanded at inside linebacker heading into an early November game at Dartmouth. The defensive coaches asked Scarano if he could learn a new position … by Friday.

It was a big ask. Fortunately, Scarano had a head start.

"The only way that I know how to play is by knowing the entire defense," he said. "That's just how I operate. I need to know how the pieces fit together. So I knew a good amount of defense, but from the inside linebacker perspective, it was a lot more complicated than I thought it was going to be."

His crash course included hours upon hours of film watching with inside linebackers coach Mike Weick. He made six tackles in his debut at the position, and added nine two weeks later. He had found a new home; one season later, he was an All-Ivy League honoree who made 68 tackles, including 11.5 for loss, and added four passes defensed and a forced fumble.

"Marco is a physical, sideline-to-sideline linebacker that has done a great job in every position we have asked him to play," Surace said. "He has been far more than just an impressive All-Ivy player throughout his career, though. He is an exceptional leader that has the respect of everyone in the program."

That would be most crucial over the recent offseason, when Princeton Football faced a fork in the road. It came off its worst season since 2011 and faced the potential of falling into the lower tier of Ivy programs heading into Scarano's final season. He simply wasn't going to have that.

"The offseason started right after the Penn game, and we had to find a way to make it fun, while upholding the standards and the accountability that needs to be set on a winning football team," Scarano said. "We encouraged the rest of the team. We made sure the accountability was where it needed to be, but we wanted to make sure the guys were enjoying college football in the process."

Everybody enjoyed the first 30 minutes of the season, but a sizable lead evaporated in the second half of a 42-35 loss in the season opener to San Diego. Scarano, who had been voted a team captain two weeks earlier, watched the film with his teammates and realized every issue was self-inflicted. The bad news was that cost them a game. The good news was it could be fixed for the future.

A win over Lafayette was tangible evidence that the hard work was paying dividends, but Princeton faced questions once again in the Ivy League opener against the reigning Ivy League champion Columbia Lions. This time, film review and encouragement wouldn't be enough, so Scarano went into superhero mode. The Lions raced out to a 10-0 lead and threatened for more inside Princeton territory. A fourth-down pass seemed ready to move the sticks when Scarano leapt over the intended receiver and (somehow) intercepted the pass.

Since that point, Princeton has outscored Ivy League opponents 57-21 and earned the right to play in a first-place showdown with 14th-ranked Harvard this Saturday (noon, Powers Field at Princeton Stadium, ESPN+).

"Harvard Week is always a fun one," said Scarano, who studies anthropology and entrepreneurship. "It's always going to be crazy. That's what makes football fun, looking for those crazy games, those big games."

Teams with 3-7 records rarely earn the opportunity to play in that type of game. It took culture and leadership to move past the disappointments of 2024 and get back to where Princeton has been for the majority of the decade. It took the type of leadership Avon Old Farms measures its players by, and the type that Surace always believed would keep Princeton on the right path.

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