To most people, Mike Cerminaro would seem to have done it all. After starring at Howell High School in three sports — football, basketball and baseball — he went on to play college football and baseball at Wagner College in Staten Island, N.Y.

He was drafted by the Chicago Cubs out of college and played with Chicago’s minor league affiliates for three years, during which time he became very familiar with the infamous marathon bus rides between minor league cities.

After his stint in professional baseball it was on to Wall Street, where he worked in marketing for three years. That would be the final stop for most people, but Cerminaro isn’t most people and Wall Street was not the be-all and end-all for him.

While working in the world of finance, Cerminaro was asked by his former high school baseball teammate, Jim Agnello, the head baseball coach at St. Rose High School in Belmar, if he would help out with the Purple Roses.

Cerminaro said yes and it was then that he got the calling, so to speak.

“I said, ‘This is what I want to do,’ ” Cerminaro explained. “I went back to school (Kean University) and got certified (as a teacher). Now I’m like every other teacher, looking for a job.”

Cerminaro is currently working as a substitute teacher in the Freehold Regional High School District.

This year he has joined Howell football coach Cory Davies’ staff as the receivers coach, bringing him full circle and back to the school where he was one of the three or four finest all-around athletes to grace its hallways.

“I’m glad to be back,” he said. “I always wanted to come back and coach for Coach Davies; he’s a great coach to learn from. I’m also excited about Ryan (Davies, the coach’s son). He was 4 years old when I was here.”

Ryan Davies is now the Rebels’ 6-3 junior starting quarterback.

Cerminaro takes pride in being on Davies’ first state playoff team (1996). It was his 1995 and 1996 teams (7-2, 7-3) that helped pave the way for where the program is now, to the point where it has a culture of winning.

“I always like to think that Derek (Reichenbecher, the Rebels’ defensive coordinator who played on those teams with Cerminaro) and myself instilled the way football should be played around here,” he said. “When we were here, it was ‘We can do it.’ Now it’s expected.”

Cerminaro certainly likes the passfriendly spread offense Howell runs now.

“It’s awesome,” he said. “It’s something I have to pick up on. When I was here we threw 15 to 18 passes a game. They do that in a half now.”

But not all things have changed.

“Coach Davies will run a play and he will explain to me that it is the same play we ran but with different terminology.”

The biggest change Cerminaro sees is off the field, where weight training is even further advanced, and more players are playing just one sport — football.

“The kids are more dedicated to one sport,” he said. “It’s football 365 days a year.”

Davies said Cerminaro is an asset to the Rebels’ program because of his knowledge of the game as a high school quarterback and wide receiver in college, and because of his youth and exuberance. It also doesn’t hurt that the current players look up to and respect him, even if they are too young to remember his high school exploits, because of all that he has accomplished.

Davies is not surprised to see his former quarterback back in the sport as a coach.

“He always talked about coaching,” Davies said. “He understands the game so well.”

In the past five years, Davies’ Rebels have enjoyed unprecedented success. They have been to the state playoffs four of the last five years. They won the school’s first NJSIAA Central Jersey Group IV state title in 2007, the year after they played in the championship game (2006). They have won two Shore Conference division titles in that span, including last year’s Shore Conference Constitution Division crown.

Cerminaro is happy to see there is a buzz around football because, as he put it, he always thought that Howell was “a football town.”