Justin-Siena graduate Gary Rossi talks to his first Del Norte High girls soccer team in San Diego after a game in 2011.
Gary Rossi was very active in Napa sports and clubs during the last six years of his childhood.
It led to a busy and thrilling life as an adult, including a 20-year career in the Navy that saw him serve as an ultra-fit SEAL and head of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit.
Forty-six years later, he’s back in town and ready to inspire young people as head coach of the American Canyon High School girls soccer program.
It won’t be his first rodeo.
Rossi was first girls soccer head coach at Del Norte High in San Diego, which opened in 2009 — one year before American Canyon did. He started with a junior varsity team because the school didn’t have juniors or seniors yet, and guided the Nighthawks to records of 10-2-1 in league play — good for first place — and 13-5-3 overall.
It was a sign of things to come.
Del Norte made the playoffs seven of the next eight years and won four league titles, two in the Valley League and two in the Avocado East League, with a San Diego Section Division I title following the last league crown in 2015-16.
The Nighthawks were a combined 54-13-11 in three leagues and 116-56-32 overall in eight varsity campaigns under Rossi. In their second varsity season, despite having no seniors, they went 10-0 in league and won 13 straight before falling in the Division 3 section final. They moved up to the Division I playoffs after that.
Rossi was able to reload each year except for 2016-17, following the section championship season, They won four games, two in their new Palomar League.
“Two seniors opted out. They were Elite Clubs National League/Academy players (and had) no loyalty,” he said. “It was a challenging season and a character builder.”
Rossi said he stepped down to relocate to Napa.
“Then my father passed, which accelerated my relocation to help my family here in Napa,” he explained. “I live on Dry Creek Road, but my wife (Jana) still lives in the Carmel Valley/Del Mar near San Diego as she has a very good job there. It’s a distant arrangement for the time being.”
They had lived in the San Diego area off and on since 1978, and for good since 1996.
Rossi’s main job is as a consultant with a client in Sacramento.
His predecessor at American Canyon, Travis Behn, coached the Wolves to a share of the 2015-16 title in the old Solano County Athletic Conference. The Wolves, who moved from the Sac-Joaquin Section to the North Coast Section and Vine Valley Athletic League three years ago, never won a playoff game under Behn nor Gabriel Zepeda, who coached them during their first four seasons.
“That was the similar situation that I encountered at Del Norte, since I had the opportunity to start and develop the program there,” Rossi said. “I love challenges. Yes, I had to build a culture there. The program was built on what Anson Dorrance has built at the University of North Carolina. I had a vision and it took about four years for all to buy into the concept. Our foundation was what we called the 4 D’s — desire, dedication, determination and discipline.”
Rossi began developing his own character after his parents moved him and his brother and sister to Napa in 1968 because his grandparents had lived and owned property there since the late 1940s.
He attended St. Apollinaris Catholic School and Justin-Siena High School. His 1974 graduation class included California State Senator Bill Dodd, after whom the high school’s stadium is named. His brother also went to Justin-Siena, but his sister attended Vintage.
Rossi was active in the 4-H Club, serving as treasurer.
Gary Rossi, who coached Del Norte High of San Diego to four league titles and a section crown in eight varsity seasons, talks to a player in 2013.
“It was a great time,” he said of 4-H. “I was fortunate to be an All-Star. I was going to apply for Diamond Star, but I would not have been able to fulfill my duties since I was going to the Naval Academy.”
He competed for the Napa Swim Club through his sophomore year, but his only sport at Justin-Siena was freshman football.
“I also had a wrestling class and I did weightlifting for football, but that was it,” he said.
As the head of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit in the Navy, Rossi once cleared a house for President George H.W. Bush, who thanked him for his service at the end of the night. Rossi eventually found his way to soccer in the Navy.
After getting his son and daughter to participate in the 250-mile Ride Across California, a yearly cycling event for fifth-graders, he became the ride’s lead volunteer.
“I’d say he’s motivational,” a player on his first varsity team told the San Diego Union-Tribune in a 2011 story. “He teaches you that you have to work hard on varsity. If you want to be a captain, you have to work for it. He’s very inspiring. He says it’s not just about playing. It’s about being a good person, being in shape. He goes on runs with us. You look at him and say, ‘He’s an old man, how can he be in better shape than me?’”
Added another Del Norte player in 2011, “If I had to use one word to describe him, it’s caring. During games he gives us a lot of feedback, yes, and he’s serious, but it’s with good intentions. He cares about every single one of the players on the team.”
He and his wife had lived in the San Diego area off and on since 1978 before settling down in 1996. Rossi first started coaching soccer at the freshman level when his kids started playing, compiling a 75-9-7 record.
At Del Norte, he said, he was “in the right place at the right time” with seven travel teams within 10 miles of the school. But he wasn’t easy on them. He had a 30-point system for players to earn their varsity letters that included recycling to help raise money for the team and reading “The Vision of a Champion” by Dorrance.
“I believe if you want to be the best in the world, you have to do it consistently, every day,” Rossi said in the 2011 story. “That’s my No. 1 goal, to get the girls who play for us to develop mental toughness and tenacity, to have the mentality that I’m going to give 110 percent, and no one is going to beat me, that I’m going to leave everything on the field.”
Added a freshman on his first varsity team, “When I first saw him and heard he was a Navy SEAL, I assumed he’d run us until we puked. But he was nice and polite and open about everything, like if you expect to make the varsity, this is what he expects out of you. He’s passionate about everything, about the game, our team, about life and about everything.”
In another Union-Tribune piece two years later, Rossi said clubs didn’t teach the mental game because they didn’t have time to do it.
“There are four elements to soccer, technical, tactical, physical and psychological,” he said. “I focus on the physical and psychological.”
He had his 2013 team read “The Messiah Method,” a book is about the men and women’s soccer programs at Messiah College that combined to go 472-31-20 from 2000 to 2010. Rossi coined an acronym, “STS,” based on the book that stands for School, Team, Self — the order of the way he wants his players to think.
“I will still hear the word ‘me’ or ‘what will it take for me to do this or that.’ That is why I want them to read these things,” he said in 2013. “I want them to get an idea as to what high-level colleges and universities do to get on a higher track. It prepares them for competition in life, too.”
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