Regan steps down as North Salem varsity basketball coach

NORTH SALEM, N.Y. - After six seasons at the helm of North Salem’s varsity basketball team, Chris Regan has decided not to reapply for the head coaching position next year. 

“You reach a point where you’re going year to year,” Regan explains. “I thought about not coming back and that this year would be my last year. I really enjoyed coaching this group of kids. We had some success, and I started reevaluating. But then I thought, can I really put in all the time that I needed to? I didn’t want to do a disservice to the program. I feel good about the choice.”

Regan’s decision to step down comes at the end of a basketball coaching career that spanned more than two decades in North Salem. 

“I have a lot of great memories,” continues Regan. 

Before he led the Tigers as the varsity head coach, Regan spent five years at the modified level and then coached North Salem’s JV team for 14 years. 

This tenure included being part of the program that captured sectional titles in 2008 and 2017. During Regan’s first season as varsity coach, the Tigers had a 13-game winning streak and rode the momentum into the playoffs where they nearly advanced before dropping a heartbreaker in the quarterfinal round. The following year, Regan’s squad would once again make noise in the postseason with an upset win over Palisade Prep. 

In his final season this past winter, Regan and the Tigers advanced to the section title game at the Westchester County Center, coming up short against top-seeded Tuckahoe. 

“This last group from this past year were incredibly competitive, and they had a winning mentality,” Regan extolls. “Being around that was infectious for me. It really made me rethink whether I could do another year. I really enjoyed working with this team. Whoever comes in next will have a good, competitive team to work with.”

Regan, who is in his 29th year of teaching social studies, draws parallels between the court and the classroom. 

“You really start to apply a teacher’s mentality to coaching,” he explains. “You start to associate a lot of what you do in the classroom into what you do in practice and games. Being disciplined and working hard translates into what you do in sports.” 

As he looks back at his own learning curve in coaching, Regan credits the previous varsity coach as being instrumental in helping him. 

“There was no greater mentor than Henry Sassone,” says Regan. “Everything I learned, I learned from watching him.

Now that he is closing out a successful chapter, Regan is looking to the future. He will still be involved in athletics as a Section 1 football referee, but also hopes to enjoy a more relaxed schedule. 

“We’re empty nesters now, so my wife is very happy that I will have all this free time now,” he adds. 

As he prepares for life after the Tigers, Chris Regan offered a few parting words about what he had hoped to accomplish with his players, and what he hopes comes from their own next chapters. 

“I wanted to give them a positive experience,” he concludes. “So they come out after graduation knowing that they learned the game, enjoyed the game, had fun with their friends, and they’re ready to teach the next generation of basketball players as parents themselves one day. To create that love of the game and the passion for the sport itself is what we’re doing. I like to think that we always tried to foster that culture.”