Bio

Coach Gallo enters his 16th season at the helm of the Voyageurs women’s soccer program, coming off of a successful 2014-2015 campaign highlighted by another appearance in the playoffs. Throughout his tenure, Gallo has produced 24 OUA All-Stars and taken home the OUA Coach of the Year award on three separate occasions.

Born in Sudbury and literally raised in a soccer environment through the Italia Flyers organization, Rob Gallo credits the basis of his approach with the world’s most popular sport on early exposure to European-based coaching.

A defender who prided himself on maintaining a physical presence on the field, Gallo would capture three OUA championships during his post-secondary career, a stretch that would see him suit up both with Laurentian and Carleton. As a player, the highlight would come in a Silver Medal performance at the CIS championships in 1984 when Carleton would fall on penalty kicks to UBC, just one year after the Laurentian men emerged as national champions.

Gallo’s start in coaching came during his time in Belleville, when he joined the staff of the Loyalist Lancers under coach Eugene Courtney. The influence of both the well-respected Irishman as well as Laurentian mainstay Greg Zorbas are evident in Gallo’s teachings to this day. Having spent time with both St Charles College and Lockerby Composite in the Sudbury high-school ranks, Gallo became the first coach of the Voyageurs women’s soccer program in 1999, first as a club team, then as full-fledged OUA participants one year later. Among the special memories of his decade spent at Laurentian, the team’s first playoff appearance in 2002 as well as the magical run of 2004 are major highlights. “It was just one of those years when everything fell into place”, noted Gallo. The team recorded an amazing string of seven straight shutouts, advancing all the way to the OUA final four after eliminating both Brock and number-one ranked York on the road.

On top of his coaching duties, Gallo stays involved in the community as the former president and now director of the Ten Rainbows Children’s Charity. He has also been employed with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board for the past 28 years.

Gallo is excited for the upcoming 2015 campaign which will hopefully build upon the success of one year ago.