Gary Messing comes to Capital Athletic with over forty years of soccer playing and coaching experience. He is widely regarded as one of the top youth soccer coaches in the country. Messing is a United States Soccer Federation ’A’ Licensed coach and also holds his NSCAA Premier Diploma. Both are the highest licenses conferred in the U.S. by those organizations.

Messing began his youth coaching career in 1987. Most recently he was the head coach for the Placer United Prestige Gold U17 Girls. Prior to that he coached for the San Juan Soccer Club for three seasons. While at San Juan he led the San Juan Predators to the U16 Boys CYSA State Cup Championship in 2002.

He is also noted for coaching one of the most successful girls soccer teams in the history of the Sacramento area. Messing was the head coach of the Sacramento United Shooting Stars from 1991 to 2000. The team won the U19 League Championship as an U16 team and played for two seasons in the Nor-Cal Premier League Gold Division.

As a soccer player, Messing was a member of the Amherst College team. He was named to the All New England team and was also a Region I All American. He was also captain of the New England All Star Team. He went on to play for Club Espana in New York, Hakoah, of the San Francisco First Division, and Aguias and Tepeyac of the Central California Soccer League.

Messing also has a tremendous amount of experience in soccer administration. From 1996 to 2000 he served as the Director of Coaching for Sacramento United. In 1998 he was named the Technical Director for Nor-Cal District VI ODP. He served in that position until 2004.

He has also authored numerous soccer articles. He was the co-author of "Developing Conditioning Through Soccer-Specific Strength Exercises" which appeared in 1996 in Performance Conditioning for Soccer Magazine. He also authored ’The A.C.L. - Conditioning Is the Key to Preventing Knee Injuries" that appeared in the same magazine in 1996. He is the producer and creator of the widely popular "Soccer Aerobic Conditioning" video. And in 1994 he was the producer and director of "How to Watch and Appreciate World Cup Soccer" which was a three hour television program on public television.