Michael Rabasca didn’t intend to spend life in soccer but has held some unique positions at the game’s highest level.
He credits Sachem coaches Frank Schmidt, Jack Mahoney, Claude Amollobietta, Joe Davidson, and Pete Montalbano with a great deal of his interest in sports.
Rabasca, who graduated from Sachem in 1987, is the LA Galaxy’s Director of Cognitive Performance. He previously served as the Director of High Performance with Toronto FC and was on staff when Toronto won the MLS Cup in 2017. He also coached with Real Salt Lake’s youth academy.
Chris R. Vaccaro: Let’s talk about your formative years in soccer.
Michael Rabasca: I was maybe one of the classes that really started paying attention to soccer, in club soccer with a year-round focus. I had the privilege of working with Claude Amollobietta. We grew up playing with Coach Schmidt. We had a lot of high hopes for our high school years. Our group had a little bit of a breakthrough.
The Sachem football fields behind Waverly Avenue Elementary were the beginning of my passion for the sport. I remember the 1982 World Cup and talking with Coach Schmidt, which were so hard to watch at the time. I also remember the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. It was just us talking with him about the game. A lot of his passion for this sport rubbed off on us a little bit. Coach Schmidt always seemed to know a little bit more.
CRV: I’m glad you mentioned Coach Schmidt. I love talking about the legendary coaches who helped establish Sachem in the 1970s and beyond. Before Coach Schmidt, it was Coach Woolley. Talk more about what Frank meant to you.
MR: As a goalkeeper, things started off really well for me as a sophomore. I was able to be on the varsity team, which seemed a bit unusual. I had a really rocky high school career, starting here and there, and I was injured. My expectations were high. Coach Schmidt always brought out the best in us during training. He inspires and motivates so well. In my case, he spoke the truth. I didn’t want to hear the truth. It taught me a great lesson as a coach – you can’t boil decisions down to one simple thing. With his willingness to stand by his decisions and still have compassion, I would not have wound up at the University of New England without his help in the background.
His passion for the sport and his passion for each individual player was incredible. I was fortunate to work with Coach Mahoney as a wrestler. You didn’t know it, but it really did feel like a unique environment when you stepped into the wrestling room or stepped on the soccer field. Both coaches had a mutual respect for each other, and you knew that. Coach Schmidt, what he brought each day to making individuals better, taught us to be self-respectful, to respect the world we were going into, and not to waste moments. There were hard lessons learned inside seasons. There was a party many of us attended, and I remember the way he handled it – knowing but not really knowing – he wasn’t a punisher, but he was disciplined.
CRV: At what point did you want to or realize you would be spending your life in soccer?
MR: In my last college game, I fractured my tibia and wanted to be done with it. There was so much disappointment, and I had no interest in coaching or anything like that. My college coach asked me to do a summer camp in Maine. I was tired of working with my Dad in construction. I returned to Long Island, and Coach Amollobieta asked me to work with an individual. At first, I said no; I wanted to get on with my career as an occupational therapist.
Then, I moved to Arizona and thought I would be free. When I knew I was hooked, I was finally the head coach of a local high school. It was a fantastic, magical season. I learned a lot from all the coaches I played for—Schidt, Mahoney, Amollobietta, and my college coach.
When I was a head coach, Coach Schmidt was my model. He would say that the decision you make today will mean a lot for the future of this program. Those lessons of growing a program, down to how we treated equipment, the collection of equipment, and doing all the little things a program needs, were more important than any individual player. That was from all the days we were around him.
CRV: It’s one thing to go from never thinking you’d be a soccer coach to coaching high school-level ball, but then to be in the MLS, working with some of the world’s best athletes, that’s another level!
MR: It wasn’t a straight path. I didn’t leave high school or college thinking I would be a soccer coach of any sort. Sports psych has always been around. I shy away from sports psyche and mental performance terms. We stick a lot to measurables. They still say my department is the only one of its kind in Major League Soccer. Other MLS teams have sports psychology and maybe mental performance. We’re working on vision, decision-making, executive cognitive function, working on things we can measure, measuring brain waves, and bio-medical feedback. A little tweak and different approach. I keep myself nice and tight in here and do not make assumptions about what the rest of the world is doing.
Nothing is compulsory. Everything is voluntary. Quite frankly, I’m a staff member of one person. My department is me, and then there are some interns. It’s almost impossible for me to get to 28-30 players during the week. We have targets; we have players who are young and need development. We have players who we have to prioritize, and we talk about grit, resilience, and visual components.
CRV: How did you end up coaching and working in Major League Soccer?
MR: My first coaching position at a high school was with Greg Vanney’s father, Bill Vanney, who was the athletic director. Greg was at UCLA and worked out at our high school, and from that moment on, we have been together since 1996.
CRV: You’ve experienced the highest highs, winning an MLS Cup with Toronto in 2017. Talk about that experience. It must be super gratifying to know that the things you work with players on actually help them reach their goals.
MR: It’s such a magical time. A lot of things fell into place. What makes it unique is in a period of four years, we had three runs to the MLS Cup final. We were CONCACAF final. As a staff we were adding sports science pieces and cognitive pieces. We have some great photos of goals we set at the beginning of the year. There were a series of 12 objectives to support goals and photos of big check marks. Of the 12, we secured 10 of them. Those are really satisfying, and you feel like you have contributed and played a part in the overall group. There are some moments in high school or college – triumphant moments – playing for a league title. In Arizona, we won three state championships. It feels so good to be part of a group that sets high standards and can accomplish them. The experience in Toronto felt like a lot of experiences I had in high school – the magnitude and the scope. The cameras are on you. The satisfaction. From what I experienced, I’m familiar with this, and it’s a driver now. Is this going to be the thing that helps the guy help us do this? I think back to high school and ask, ‘Is this practice the one that helps us turn the corner as a team?’ I love it.
CRV: Bring it full circle for me. Relate this crazy soccer run back to your Sachem days and put it all in perspective.MR:I never saw Coach Schmidt as obsessive. He may have been teaching, but I bet there was a piece of paper with his notes and thoughts, and planning was going on. One thing that stands out is the quality of the assistant coaches. Joe Davidson and Pete Montalbano were all extraordinary in their own right. We benefited from double expertise. It was a perfect cauldron of people to help us become the men we are today. It never escapes me. It was a special time. It takes time to learn lessons, and they taught me some great lessons.