Len Guarna, Sr.

• Post by: mcalibrary
• December 18, 2023
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INDUCTEE

Len Guarna was one of Mount Carmel High School’s outstanding three sport athletes. He lettered in Football, Baseball and Track as a sophomore and junior; but a school policy preventing participation in track and baseball at the same time limited his participation to football and track only as a senior.

He co-captained both the track and football squads his senior year. He was a district class jumper on track and an all state selection as a football player.

Lenny was involved with one of the oddities that sometimes crop up in sports; as a sophomore football player he scored the first time he ever touched the football in a varsity game. Almost 20 years later his son, Lenny, Jr. scored the first time he touched the ball as a Tornado varsity player.

After his successful high school career, Len played varsity football for the Susquehanna Crusaders for two years. But a disabling knee injury in his junior year ended his football career.

After graduating from Susquehanna in 1965 he coached football and basketball at Mifflinburg High School for one year; but responding to an opportunity to return to Mount Carmel High School as a coach the following year. He was a highly successful freshmen coach for 18 years, producing many undefeated teams and helped establish that winning tradition that aided Jazz lead the “Tornadoes” to their glory years and was also instrumental in setting up a weight program in the off-season for the Tornadoes. Len coached the jumping events for the track team for 17 years producing many Southern Conference and District IV Champions.

Lenny gave up coaching in 1983 following an illness. He remains on the faculty at Mount Carmel Area High School where he has been an instructor in the Business Education Department for 25 years.