Coach Gabe Meints named Class C1 Football Coach of the Year

At the end of the 2025 football season at Syracuse-Dunbar-Avoca Schools in Syracuse, Nebraska, first-time head coach, Gabe Meints, a native of Tecumseh, was named Coach of the Year and received the    Berens Coaching Award, named for former Roncalli Catholic head coach Mike Berens.
“I am honored to receive this award on behalf of our Team.” said Coach Meints. “This award is a culmination of all the individuals involved in making this season a success - it took ALL of us to have the success that we did.”
This is Meints’ fourth year of coaching at Syracuse. In the previous three years, he served as an assistant coach working with the offensive line, tight ends, and special teams.
“Going into this season, starting as far back as May, we felt really good with the group that we had,” said Coach Meints. “When I first got the job, we had a meeting and it was at that point where we said if we were going to do something special this year, we all needed to be on board with the same goals in mind.”
According to Coach Meints, the mantra for the season was ‘WIT: Whatever It Takes’.  “If we were going to have success, we needed to do ‘Whatever It Takes’ in the summer, during camps, in practice, in the classroom, to be successful. Our coaches did a great job before the season started of refreshing our players with the fundamentals and our Offensive and Defensive schemes, so that way when the season rolled around, we were ready to jump right in.”
Meints said it doesn’t matter what class you play in, “you need to prepare yourself the best you can each week no matter who you are playing. We were very excited to have just finished our regular season undefeated and using that momentum to go into the first round of playoffs.” In addition, the Rockets football squad hadn’t been in a playoff for about 10 years, so the town was very energetic and excited.
“My personal favorite  game of the season would have to be the first round playoff game against Omaha Gross,” Meints. “It was a special one because it was a playoff game, and again, we had just finished our regular season undefeated, District Champions, and wanted our season to continue.”
According to Meints, there were no special words of wisdom provided by the coaches to the players before Syracuse’s Playoff game. “We just told them, like we did with every other game, to enjoy the moment, trust each other, believe in each other, and take care of the little things.”
Meints stated that this was his second time as a Head Coach, so he took the advice he received from his first stint, at Johnson County Central Schools, into this season. Coach Meints had worked with head coaches, Jon Rother and Ryan Haughton, at JCC that helped him be an effective head coach.
“The 2025 Rocket Football Team would like to thank all of the people in the community of Syracuse, and outside of Syracuse alike, for their encouragement and reaching out to congratulate our team on a very memorable year. This community is so supportive of all of our sports teams and we can hopefully take this momentum forward and have successful sports seasons the rest of this year, and carry it over into next season,” Coach Meints concluded.