For longtime Freeport track coach Charles Gilreath, it's time to pass the baton
Freeport coach Charles Gilreath at the Nassau Class AAA track and field team championships at Syosset on May 28, 2025. Credit: Elizabeth Sagarin
Oftentimes, a great career individual has someone standing behind him, influencing him and providing support.
That’s certainly the case with Roosevelt’s Charles Gilreath, who is enjoying his first summer of retirement after 40 years of coaching.
Gilreath spent the past 28 years coaching at Freeport High School after a 10-year stint at his alma mater, Roosevelt High School. He spent his final year as the coach of Freeport’s boys cross country and the indoor and outdoor track and field teams. German Banegas will take over the cross country team and Elmer Argueta is slated to coach the boys track teams.
“I was able to influence kids and guide them to be something positive,” Gilreath said. “I didn’t really recognize it, but I’ve coached generations. Sometimes I’ll walk through the neighborhood and someone will honk and wave at me as they pass. I’ll see people and they’ll thank me for all I’ve done, so that makes me feel good to know that I was a positive influence on so many boys and girls.”
Gilreath, 62, won county championships in Class A, B and C and posted a 340-110-2 career record. He also taught physical education in Freeport Public Schools for 20 years, spending 16 at Bayview Avenue School of Arts & Sciences, one year at Caroline G. Atkinson Intermediate School and the final three at the high school. He also has been a deacon at Greater Second Baptist Church in Freeport for 10 years.
These roles have allowed Gilreath to impact the lives of many, and he could not have done it without support from his wife, Donna.
“We did the family thing and the track thing at the same time. We just had to figure it out,” Donna Gilreath said. “Sometimes we had to leave places early, sometimes we had to split up responsibilities, but it worked.”
The two met as classmates in fifth grade and became senior prom dates at Roosevelt in 1980. After four decades of working, the high school sweethearts felt it was time to spend the rest of their time with each other.
“When I look at the numbers, I coached three seasons for 40 years; that’s 120 seasons,” Charles Gilreath said. “There were things we’ve never gotten to do together. We want to spend the back half of our life doing some traveling, and we’ll see where the rest of life takes us.”
After high school, Charles Gilreath became a printer for American Bank Stationary and was an assistant wrestling coach at Hempstead.
Getting into coaching at Hempstead, working under his former coach, Basil Barnes, led to a position at Roosevelt, which he took while still working at American Bank Stationary. After 10 years at that factory, he spent another 10 years doing in-house printing for Long Island Savings Bank, during which time he was hired to coach at Freeport.
At 38, Gilreath was laid off from his printing job. Taking a new job would have forced him to quit coaching. With a daughter (Ebony), a son (Charles Jr.) and another child (Jarrett) on the way, Gilreath’s wife suggested he go into teaching.
“When we made that choice, it was about what was best for our family,” Donna said. “He could’ve stayed in the printing field, but he wouldn’t have been able to coach, and I didn’t want that taken away from him. Yes, we’d have food on the table, but he wouldn’t be able to do what he was sent here to do.”
While coaching at Freeport, Gilreath earned his associate’s degree from Nassau County Community College in 2002 and his bachelor’s degree from Hofstra in the fall of 2004.
“It was a little scary because I hadn’t been in school in 20 years,” Gilreath said. “Because I’m a man of faith, I trusted what I was going to do. Sometimes you have to step out on faith. Plus, I have a great spouse. She held down a lot of the load, and I did what I had to do until we finally got there.”
The Freeport district hired him as a substitute teacher in January 2005 and made him full-time that fall.
In 2014, he founded the Long Island Elite youth track camp. Baldwin track coach Mike Higgins, who coached against him for many years, helped him run the Long Island Elite until it closed in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s just a matter of time before he should be elected to the Hall of Fame,” Higgins said. “He’s always sent athletes to the state meet. He’s produced more county champions and all-state athletes than you can count. He’s a Hall of Fame coach — it’s just that simple.”
Gilreath not only guided young people through coaching but was a role model through his marriage. Roosevelt alum Tiffanie Poole-Gentles, who won 19 county championships in five years under him, was one of those inspired by the Gilreaths.
“Coach G and Mrs. Gilreath — I call her Momma Donna — have supported us throughout our career and our lives,” Poole-Gentles said. “The cool thing is, I don’t think he understands how impactful his relationship with her was on us . . . Having that mentorship, that marital role model, allowed us as ladies to pair our lives with that role model in mind. I’ve been married for 15 years to my college sweetheart. You see the patterns?”
The Gilreaths have plans to travel, including a trip to Germany to visit Charles Jr., who is stationed there with the United States Army, and his family.
Gilreath likely also will stay involved in the community.
“I’ll probably do some personal training or counseling — maybe run some camps, clinics or give some mentoring,” he said. “There’s a lot of things on my mind that I still want to give or help people with, but I just don’t want to be tied to any particular schedule.”
And Donna will be there with him: “I always want him to win,” she said.
Mike Anderson is a high school sports reporter who has covered 12 sports so far at Newsday. He was the sports editor of Stony Brook University's campus newspaper for two years.
