John Groess is a math teacher and Girls Ultimate Frisbee coach at Benilde-St. Margaret’s. After working his way up the ladder, Groess got a job offer in 2020 to coach the United States Ultimate Frisbee team and led his new team to the World Cup in the summer of 2023.
Coaching the USA Ultimate Frisbee team is a dream come true for Groess and something he has worked for his entire life. He aspired to be a coach at the highest and best level and so he continued to work hard. After getting this offer, his team placed in the bronze division in Huntington Beach, California. “I was helping select the team and then I was helping as an assistant coach, and then now I’m the head coach,” Groess said.
Groess never played on the USA team himself because of an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear in high school. However, his passion for the sport never went away and after recovering he moved to Spain in his late twenties, becoming part of the 2016 Spanish International team. Then, Groess played in the World Championship in London at the age of thirty. Four years later, he was offered the opportunity to coach the highest-level players in the world.
I coached probably the top twenty players in the country, and I’m so glad I did because it was an amazing opportunity to coach adults who have that passion and that skill.”
— John Groess
After placing third place in the World Cup, Groess is now eager to coach his USA Ultimate Frisbee team back to the World Championship in Australia next summer, with his team coming back better than ever. Growing in different ways and being able to play internationally is allowing these sports to grow in countries where the world of ultimate frisbee is not as prominent. Ultimate Frisbee is a sport that is growing each and every day, allowing the world to acknowledge it and see how much it means to people. “If they go back with that experience, kind of learning and growing, and how they can help people, I also hope that some of the teams that we played against this past weekend, it was good for them to play against us and learn from us,” Groess said.