Sam Pagano
Fairview
Sam Pagano is an iconic figure in Colorado football annals. He coached at both the high school and the professional levels during his career.
He was football coach at Fairview for 25 years, from 1969-1994 where his teams went 164-58-4 and won state titles in 1978, 1979, 1987.
He was Colorado’s Coach of the Year in 1978 and 1979. In 1978, Pagano won the Colorado High School Coaches Association’s Ed Lesar Award as the Outstanding Teacher/Coach in the state.
Pagano headed the Colorado High School Coaches Association from 1974-75 and served as the head coach of the Colorado All-State Game. He was inducted into the Pueblo Sports Hall of Fame in 1978. He was a National Coach of the Year nominee in 1990.
Pagano ran the Mile High Football Clinic, a camp he started in 1975 until 2012. The clinicians for that camp included such football luminaries as Vinnie Testaverde and Peyton Manning.
The Mile High Football Camp served over a thousand young football players and helped establish Colorado as a football hotbed. College coaches from across the country would serve as clinicians and guest coaches.
Following his high school coaching career, Pagano took on the challenge of coaching football in Europe at the professional level.
During his career, he has also coached professional football in Europe. He coached teams in Bergamo, Italy; Berlin, Germany; and, Paris, France. He was an assistant coach for the UFL team in Taiwan.
His Bergamo Lions (Italy) won the 2002 Euro Bowl Champions after winning the Italian title at 16-0. His 1992 Bergamo team was runners-up in the Euro Bowl, finishing at 14-1.
His son, Chuck, is head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, while another son, John, is the San Diego Chargers defensive coordinator.