‘I Can Be a Connector’: How Michelle Betos Hopes to Improve Culture at NJ/NY Gotham FC

Michelle Betos has never been someone who exists in the gray area. She’s either all in, or all out, and after 15 years of playing professional soccer, she has decided to hang up her boots—sort of.

The 2015 National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) Goalkeeper of the Year has spent the last three seasons with NJ/NY Gotham FC and will now transition to a new role as an assistant goalkeepers coach. The decision to retire came quickly for the 36-year-old, who up until the day she decided to sign on as assistant coach was still training and weighing playing opportunities.

“I feel like once you hit 30 in this league, people start asking you what you’re going to do next, and every year I’ve been all in, giving it everything I have,” Betos says. “I have always thought that when I stop loving the game or my body completely breaks down and I’m unable to move, then I will be done, but that wasn’t a determining factor.”

Betos has not lost her love of the game, nor has her body completely given out. Instead, she has found a new calling where she can combine her love of soccer with her passion to see continued growth in the league she’s played in for over a decade.

“Last season, I was captain and had a leadership role [at Gotham], and I was really privileged to have conversations with [head coach] Juan Carlos Amorós, [general manager] Yael [Averbuch West] and [club owner] Carolyn [Tisch Blodgett], and really be able to look at this club and see how I can make an impact, make it better for players and improve player and staff relations. Culture is an ever-evolving thing.”

At the end of the season, Betos and the team started to discuss the idea of her joining the club in a staff role. The idea sparked something in Betos who at the time was still planning on playing. She had several opportunities, and really had to sit with the idea of ending her career. However, the opportunity presented by Gotham brought her a level of excitement she was not prepared for, and she knew that she had something special that she could bring to the table.

“My whole journey has been driven by this idea that I wanted to experience and achieve my greatness and see how I could be at this thing, always with the idea that one day that would allow me to help others achieve their greatness and best versions of themselves,” Betos says. “That has been my driving force for so long.”

For Betos’s longtime teammate Nealy Martin, who played with her at Gotham FC and previously at Racing Louisville, this new role is the perfect fit. Betos is not only a New York native with a passion for growing soccer in her hometown, but a person who is always looking to give back and support her teammates both on and off the field.

“Michelle was my mentor when I got to Racing and she would literally send me pro tips once a week, and I have them saved in my phone still,” Martin says. “She’s seen it all from the conception of the league and has lived through a lot. She has so much wisdom to give not only in the goalkeeping world which I only know a little bit about but as a human and a professional. I think she’s really going to help us continue to grow our culture at Gotham.”

In addition to her role supporting goalkeeper coach Brody Sams, Betos will also help to make an impact on Gotham’s culture and player wellness. She is currently finishing her mental performance certification and hopes to use that education combined with her years of experience to help Gotham’s players thrive.

“The culture and mental performance side is everything to me,” Betos says. “I’ve been lucky to be part of great environments and have great sports psychs and mental performance coaches. My longevity and success that I’ve had in the game has actually come from what I’ve done off the field, really shaping who I am and how I approach the sport.”

No first day jitters

The day after Betos made her decision to join Gotham’s staff, she found herself sitting in her first meeting with the coaching and soccer operations staff. As a vocal leader on the pitch, she wasn’t surprised that she was just outspoken in this meeting and she would be with her teammates. What did surprise her was that instead of being asked to stop, she was encouraged.

For 10 minutes, Betos spoke about her ideas for the season and her feelings about the club, and the room listened. She even spied Amorós taking notes.

“There actually is a space and a place for me here, and it was just really exciting,” Betos says. “I feel like I have so much to give and that I can make an impact, but I also feel like I have so much to learn and so many areas to grow. With Gotham, I just feel like it’s a place where I can be safe to be myself, amplify my strengths, and they’ll also have patience for my learning and growth.”

Gotham just missed out on a NWSL final appearance, losing the semifinal match to the Washington Spirit in a penalty shootout. It was a disappointing ending for the ‘super-team’ who had signed several U.S. women’s national team players that year.

During this past offseason, the team saw the departure of several star players including Lynn Williams, Crystal Dunn and Yazmeen Ryan. Despite the departures, Betos seems confident in the club’s trajectory, and she wasted no time in speaking to Amorós about what they can offer their players at Gotham.

“In that first meeting, we’re talking about the presentation we’re going to give players when they walk in, and on my first day I’m having an hour meeting with Juan going through every slide of it going over what the perception will be to players, what the intentions are, and how things can be changed or reworded, and what players feel,” Betos says. “I can be a connector, sitting in those chairs and looking at it and knowing what I would feel or what my teammates have felt, and being able to express that to make sure the messaging is in line with intentions.”

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Although Betos has only been in a staff role for mere days, she has quickly learned how intense the preparation is on the other side. The dedication is immense and elaborate, and the coaching staff is looking at so many factors, including a player pool with 26 different personalities all with varying needs. In her new role, Betos is looking to become that bridge for players and staff, ensuring everyone is heard and cared for as they work towards their shared objectives.

“Being captain of this team was, to me, one of my greatest accolades, and in that role I had to understand these players and know them,” Betos says. “I think that is something that I hope will be helpful, and hopefully a comfort piece that staff can come to me in terms of messaging to players and players can come to me in terms of messaging to staff, and really recognizing that we all have the same goal.”

Adapting to life off the pitch

As a lifelong athlete, Betos is typically up for any challenge. One she didn’t expect, however, was trading her highly active workdays for sitting in eight hours of meetings. The sudden change was quite the shock for her, and on her first day she immediately began itching to work out.

“Although my job is not to work out anymore, I need to stay on that and live like a high functioning athlete, although maybe not a pro athlete,” Betos said. “Something I really prided myself on in my career was wellness and recovery. When you can care for yourself amongst the demands of your job, you can do your job most effectively.”

By finding time to mediate between meetings and thinking carefully about her nutrition, Betos hopes to still finds ways to take care of herself so she can continue to perform at the highest level—even if it looks a little bit different than it used to.

“I was speaking with some former players I know who have retired and they were really checking in on me because it’s so hard and there’s not enough people that talk about it,” Betos says. “All of my operations have been based on how I perform best—eating, sleeping, recovery, stretching, all my operating systems are based on high level goalkeeping performance and now all my operating systems are totally different.”

Because Betos’ transition from training like a pro to retirement happened in 24 hours, she did not get the same transition out of the game that many pro athletes get. The mental and physical challenge has been a learning experience for Betos, but one that she is excited to take on even despite the grief around her retirement.

“When Kelley O’Hara knew she was retiring, I saw her in this really free space of knowing what’s coming and being able to process along her way,” Betos says. “There was part of me that really wanted that, but it’s been exciting to go into something immediately that I share the same passion for and to recognize that no matter how I did this, it was going to be a long and grieving process.

“I love this so much, we all do. To do it at this level you have to love this. I will always love it and that’s what I realized. I am not going to hate playing soccer ever. Some people get burned out but I have never experienced that. I just felt more fulfilled and more value in transitioning my energy and resources into helping the next generation. It’s something I feel like I was born to do.”

Through the ups and downs of her pro career, through several teams, the losses and the wins, Betos has experienced almost everything a player could in the NWSL. From being told at the beginning of her career that she didn’t have what it takes to be a pro, to training with keeper legends like Alyssa Naeher, Hope Solo, and Nadine Angerer, to being the first NWSL goalkeeper to score a goal in a game, Betos is uniquely positioned to use her lived experience to help the next generation of NWSL players.

“I don’t think you walk away and think about the accolades, but rather that I believed in myself and had such an incredible group around me—teammates and my parents—I had a village that believed in me enough to drown out the other voices and go for it,” Betos says. “Every time I played, every time I made a save, everything that I did in this game was a gift.”

As she looks back on her career, the biggest memories are all the little moments where she could celebrate her victories with the people that she loves. That has been her inspiration, her driving force, and finding joy in the smaller moments has made it all worthwhile.

“Any highly competitive athlete will tell you that the actual joy moments are significantly smaller than the hard ones, but when you get them, it is like a drug,” Betos says. “I will hold on to those moments forever. The trials are the ones that shape you, but the moments that you get to celebrate are the ones that stick with you.”