Coach Lauro (R) with head coach Dunlay.

In 2009-10, John Lauro entered his first season as assistant coach of the Mercy College women’s basketball team under head coach Kelli Dunlay. Lauro is the lone assistant on the staff.

Lauro comes to Mercy College with experience on both the collegiate and high school levels. He is currently ranked 12th on the New York State Coaches All-Time Win List with 446 victories.

Prior to Mercy College, Lauro was the assistant women’s basketball coach under Lynn Chiavaro at the United States Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. from 1998-1999. Before Army, Lauro was the head women’s basketball coach at Pace University in Pleasantville, N.Y., where his teams were ranked in the top 20 for four-consecutive seasons (1985-89), and reached as high as a number four ranking (1987). At the helm of the Setters’ program, Lauro’s teams went to the Division II NCAA Tournament playoffs, the Empire State Conference Championships, the Empire State Tournament Championships and the ECAC post-season tournament. He was the named the Converse Division II Eastern Region Coach of the Year in 1986.

On the high school stage, Lauro is currently the head women’s basketball coach at North Salem High School, where he has been from 1989-1998, 2005-present. In 2009, under Lauro, his team went to the Section 1 Final Four. He has earned four-straight league titles (1991-94) with North Salem, and was the Section 1 Runners-up twice (1992, 1994). Lauro was also the recipient of four Section 1 Coach of the Year Awards (1992, 1993, 1995, 2008).

From 1999-2005 he coached at various high schools around Westchester County including Sleepy Hollow (2002-05), where he took the team from a dismal record of 0-20 (2002) to the Sectional Tournament Qualifying round in 2004 and 2005, the program’s first trip in 12 years.

From 2001-2002, he was the head coach at Horace Greeley High School. Lauro also coached at John Jay High School from 2000-2001, where he achieved a 17-4 record and took the team to the Class B Semifinals. From 1976-1985 he was the head women’s basketball coach in the Tuxedo New York Union Free School District. There, he won four New York State Championships (1981-84), achieved six Section IX titles and was named the Times Herald Record Coach of the Year three times (1983-84), and the New York State Coaches Association Coach of the Year in 1985.

Lauro received his bachelor of science in Physical Education from Indiana State University in Terra Haute, Ind. He was inducted into the New York State Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame in Glens Falls, N.Y. in 2008. Lauro was the head women’s basketball coach in the New York State Empire Games from 1992-96, where he earned two bronze medals in the Open Division. He was also an assistant women’s basketball coach from 1985-86 in the scholastic division.

Lauro currently resides in Nanuet, N.Y., with his wife Cathy. He has four children, Jen, Scott, Taila and Tricia.