“Many Of Our Players Now Work With Gabe”

Throughout a long season, it’s important that I find different ways to challenge my team. Our club was fortunate to have Gabe as a guest speaker late in the season and he provided our players and staff with a unique perspective on the importance of mindful communication.

Gabe’s workshop centered around the core ideas of communication in relationship to trust, empathy, and positivity. In order to teach these concepts, you have to be a person who demonstrates these concepts. This is exactly who Gabe is and our players quickly picked up on his authenticity because of his genuine approach. Not only did he engage our group with his discussion, he also challenged them with activities that were both fun and practical. Most importantly, many of our players now work with Gabe individually or in small groups consistently, which I believe provides a competitive advantage for New Mexico United!

“Left Everyone Better People For Having Worked With Him”

“I was fortunate to meet and work with Gabe through the Rise & Shine Foundation where we worked together as part of a team of coaches and mentors to a group of young soccer players. 

I was deeply impressed with his depth of knowledge and experience, and his ability to meaningfully engage with the athletes and staff. It is rare to hear people coaching young players on the importance of both the mental and emotional sides of sport. Gabe however, worked passionately all week with the girls on how to become a better athlete and person through developing a deeper understanding and awareness of oneself.

He tackled this difficult topic with a level of honesty, compassion, and knowledge that left everyone, athletes and coaches, better people for having worked with him.”

“Transformational!”

“The Results Were Incredible!”

In 2015, Albuquerque High won it’s first state title for boys soccer bringing in a new era of achievement and expectations for the program. The following year, the team made it back to the final game of the state tournament but lost. In the reflective process afterwards, it was clear the critical piece of the game that we hadn’t given enough attention to throughout the season was the psychological aspect. Going in to 2017, we knew we had the talent for success and were confident of the players’ buy-in to the the team philosophy, but the most critical adjustment we would have to make would be to better prepare our players psychologically. We brought Gabe in to work with the team throughout the 2017 season.

From the first introductory session to the last, the enjoyment, the engagement, the critical thinking and the introspection was beyond my expectations. In fact, the entire process ended up being just as helpful for the coaching staff as it was for the players. It was transformative and absolutely eye-opening as we probed deep into aspects of the game and our relationship to it that we usually either take for granted or ignore.

The results were incredible. In our three games of the 2017 state tournament I saw a resilience and a mental awareness I hadn’t seen in the team in previous years as every game presented us with one incredibly difficult scenario after another. The players’ ability to deal with every situation and every setback was exactly the psychological achievement we wanted Gabe to help guide them to. By the end of the tournament we were champions again and won our second state title in three years. We’re looking forward to keeping Gabe involved in our program for years to come.