In terms of game-day preparation, the Power-I remains a staple of Carroll’s Bruins — ask any Baldwin player the first five plays he’s learned, and it’s a guarantee the list will be same regardless of whether he was a member of Carroll’s first playoff team, in 1991, or last season’s county finalists. The Power-I base formation has been a perfect fit for the long list of productive runners that have carried the ball for Carroll, including last season’s top backs, Jovaun Tomlinson and Trayvon Mask. They each topped 1,000 yards
rushing, the first pair to crack that barrier in the same season under Carroll.

Even now, their coach is always up to learning a new trick or two, and still has a knack for gauging the strengths of his players and tweaking the offense to fit their skills. Carroll used the open-space skills of wide receiver Travais Hylton to keep defenses off-balance with play-action passing. “This year we had a lot of motion with Hylton on the outside,” Carroll said. “For him, being a wide receiver in the Power-I does him no good. We kind of adjust to things as we go along, but every kid will tell you that the Power-I is first.”

“He’s a very easygoing guy,” Manigat said of Carroll. “He has his own system and way of doing things, but he did a great job adjusting to my personality and the type of guy I was. He never made it his way or the highway. He just came along for the ride with us.”

The ride, for Carroll, has included 13 appearances in the Nassau County Big Four, the development of a dozen All-Long Island Players, two Thorp Award Winners (Manigat and Eugene Culbreath, in 1991) and a pair of Martone Award winners (Jon Doyle, in 2008, and Andrew Berg, in 2002) for the top lineman in Nassau County. The message, according to his brother, Rich, an assistant for the entire 25 years and also a former captain of the football team, has been a simple, consistent one. “Play fast and know what you’re doing,” Rich said. “We try to keep it uncluttered, and try to keep it moving.”