- February 18, 2025
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Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a humbling sport. The martial art is a mostly ground-based fighting style, centered around grappling and submission holds.
At its core is the concept that experience and skill level can trump size and strength — in a matter of seconds, a smaller, weaker practitioner could have a much larger opponent in a rear naked chokehold, gasping for air.
Mark Cristiani understands this. The fact that it is humbling, that there is always a new technique to learn or an opponent more skilled than himself, is the very reason that he practices the sport.
“One of the best ways that I can lead is by being led,” said Cristiani, who was named the new Head Coach of Riverview High’s football team Jan. 14. “I practice Brazilian Jiu Jitsu because it helps me relate to my players. It gives me insight into what they’re feeling when they’re failing to understand a concept or a task, because I get frustrated with myself when I don’t understand something in jiu jitsu.”
Cristiani is always striving to learn more. It’s why he took this past year off from coaching — he previously was the varsity defensive line coach as well as the strength and conditioning coach for multiple sports, including football — to pursue his doctorate in Exercise Science and Health Leadership from Pennsylvania Western University.
Now Cristiani faces the biggest test of his coaching career: to get the Rams, who went 4-6 last season under former head coach Josh Smithers, on the right path.
Riverview’s football program, one of the more storied programs in the area, is in a state of flux. In Smither’s eight-year tenure as head coach, the Rams went 66-33, winning three district titles and a regional title in 2018.
In the era of high school transfers, however, Riverview has struggled to retain players, with star talent leaving for different schools in recent years. Last season running back DJ Johnson, one of the area’s top talents at the position, transferred to Booker High after starting the year at Riverview.
Cristiani, however, does not take over a program in the midst of a complete rebuild. The Rams have, barring future transfers, returning talent at key positions. The returning senior class features running back Isaiah Belt and quarterback Anthony Miller.
Belt averaged over 75 yards per game on the ground last season and Miller, although only 5-foot-10 is a true dual threat athlete. Miller, who runs an 11.84 100-meter dash and holds Riverview’s all-time school record in the javelin, recorded 18 touchdowns last year, with 11 in the air, five on the ground and two as a receiver.
Cristiani praised the work ethic of the players in the program, stating that as one of the reasons he put his name in for the job. In taking over as head coach, however, Cristiani said this would be a reset for the program.
“The players should expect nothing and earn everything,” Cristiani said. “If you look around at the prevalence of people transferring, I believe that everybody has to compete for their jobs at all times. I would be remiss to think that I’m not competing to continue to be the head coach. We’re in the production business and things get evaluated consistently.”
With that evaluation, however, comes respect. Parents can expect Cristiani to develop relationships with his players, often forged through the time they spend in the weight room, as he plans to continue on as the strength and conditioning coach.
His day starts, he said, with 55 varsity and junior varsity level football players in the weight room.
“What parents can expect is an open line of communication and for myself and the rest of the staff to hold their kids accountable. ” said Cristiani. “It feeds into my primary concern, which is developing young men and women into being good members of the community. You’re going to play life a lot longer than football. Hopefully, we can use football as a vehicle to teach you life lessons by exposing you to some hard situations and difficult circumstances and having persevere through them.”
Cristiani said he’d much rather coach out of love than fear. He wants his players to be able to come to him about any life situation and feel comfortable and cared for. It’s a style of leadership that has grown throughout his career, but was forged by his time in the military.
Cristiani is a Special Forces veteran, having served three combat tours with the U.S. Army’s elite 75th Ranger Regiment, participating in over 100 special operations missions.
“After playing college football, I was in a unit that was a very humbling experience because I was around these tremendous human beings, physically, emotionally and mentally,” said Cristiani. “I got to attend some of the premier leadership schools in the military and it redefined what I considered to be the standards and expectations of myself. Those are lessons that I carry with me, but at the same time, I’m very aware that the young men and women that I teach are not in the military and did not sign up for that lifestyle.”
His experience in the military, Cristiani said, taught him patience. It taught him how to deal with different kinds of people, to work together through difficult situations.
His time teaching English at Venice granted him perspective on what it was like to work with adolescents and not soldiers.
“The biggest event that opened my eyes was in my first year as a teacher,” said Cristiani. “I’d just left the military and there was a student who was late to class a couple of days in a row and then didn’t show up for a week. When he returned, I jumped all over him, until he told me that he’d gotten kicked out of his house the week before. He’d been sleeping on top of the pavilion and hadn’t had anything to eat.”
That interaction, Cristiani said, grew his understanding of what was truly important and essential to his students. In the hierarchy of needs, football does not come first.
“Life’s a little bit bigger than football,” Cristiani said. “It’s a little bit bigger than just winning games.”