FEATURE: Paramount Lessons from Anjel Gutierrez

By: Tim Geer, Brown Athletic Communications

For Anjel Gutierrez '05, growing up in Paramount, California was always something special. Everything from his upbringing, to his Hispanic culture, to his time at Brown has all led him back to Southern California, along with his passion in mentoring kids.

"It's home, so it's some place that I always keep getting drawn back to," Gutierrez said.

After two separate stints at Brown as both a student-athlete and football coach, Gutierrez today serves as the assistant principal at Paramount High School, doing exactly what he loves to do, while serving in a career he never dreamed of having. Anjel Gutierrez-posed

The youngest of four children, Gutierrez looked to his older siblings for guidance and was very involved with sports, specifically football, wrestling and judo.

"From Pop Warner to our wrestling and judo clubs, they were instrumental in being great mentors and paving the way for me to always do the right thing. Whether that was in school or competing at a high level, they always wanted the best for me." Gutierrez said.

Attending Paramount High, Gutierrez did play at a high level and knew he had the talent to play in college, but he knew that getting noticed would be difficult at that program. There wasn't social media or Hudl, so following his junior season he made the decision to transfer to Mater Dei High School, a private Catholic school in Santa Ana, California; a program that today boasts one of the best high school football programs in the nation, and travels throughout the country to face other top teams.

Seeing many of his teammates going on official visits to schools all over the country, Gutierrez finally earned his chance following his senior season when his head coached approached him outside of the football offices and asked him if he would be interested in going on a visit to Brown.

"At the time, I was just excited to be able to have the opportunity to go on an official visit," Gutierrez said. "But when he asked, my first question was, 'Where is Brown?'"

Making his way clear across the country and to the Northeast in the middle of February, he arrived in Providence for the first time with snow falling.

"I just remember telling myself to keep an open mind," Gutierrez recalls. "If you have fun and enjoy it, do it. Don't be afraid to leave home because you don't know what will come of it. I was a late recruit. Probably one of the last recruits to commit to that class of 2005."

Like so many students who attend Brown, Gutierrez was a good student who was the first member of his family to attend college.

"Growing up, the Ivy league wasn't even a conversation in the circles I was around," Gutierrez said. "We weren't aware of it. Now, more of my family and students I work with are aware of it because it is the only college shirt I represent." Anjel Gutierrez

Upon starting his career on College Hill, Gutierrez, who was always a good student throughout high school, found himself faced with quite a bit of adversity in his first semester and was dealt a big dose of reality.

"It was definitely a rocky start. In high school, things came relatively easy and I built some bad habits, and thought that it would transfer over to college," Gutierrez said. "I actually ended up on academic probation my freshman year."

Unsure of exactly what he wanted to do after graduation, Gutierrez majored in history, crediting members of the football coaching staff, Paul Frisone and Abbott Burrell, for getting him back in line. He knew how important it was to follow the process and finish what he had started, and worked his way into Brown's starting lineup as an outside linebacker early in his sophomore year, and as a senior in 2004, was named a team captain, one of the very few Hispanic captains in program history.

"When you're the first member of your family to go to college, there is no blueprint," Gutierrez said. "You have to figure things out by yourself. I'm definitely thankful for that experience. It taught me a lot. No one's path is going to be like everyone else's. You have to forge your own and make sure that you don't quit."

He explained that sticking with football gave him an unknown sense of confidence because he was able to have success in a sport that many Mexican kids were not expected to excel at. With both sides of his family of Mexican decent, many would have expected him to gravitate to a more traditional Hispanic sport such as soccer, but he kept playing football because of his love for the game.

His football passion has left a mark on his life, and while both he and his parents were born and raised in Southern California, his Mexican and Hispanic heritage played a major role in his drive and the way in which he represents himself and those around him.

"One thing with Hispanic culture is, we're huge on family," Gutierrez said. "More from the sense where you realize you don't just represent yourself; you represent your family and everyone that has helped you succeed. As a kid, I was never able to really express that, but it's always something that I've done. Going to Brown, I knew what I represented. I represented the University and the football program. I always did my best for the program and the people that brought me in, for the people that believed I could excel at this level and believed I could make it academically. I didn't want to let them down. You build that family dynamic, even with the guys I played with to this day. That came from my upbringing and the Hispanic culture."

"No matter what your win-loss record is, it's about the guys you play with," Gutierrez said, rattling off names of former teammates whose weddings he will attend this Fall, as well as a younger recruit he hosted from Miami who is coming to visit with him and his family. "I still get together with a lot of the guys I played with."

One thing that Gutierrez knew he loved doing was working with kids. He was able to do that at Brown through the football program's partnership with Fox Point Elementary School, mentoring and spending time with young students in Providence.

After graduation, mentoring children came in several different forms, the first of which was not far from where it all began.

"Coaching was something I loved doing right after Brown," Gutierrez said. "I was coaching high school ball, and when the opportunity presented itself, I reached out to Coach Estes and there was no hesitation to bring me back on board. I wasn't doing as much coaching as I was breaking down film and making sure practice was setup, but it was still fun. That experience made me respect what the coaches do on a whole other level. Going through the grind of the season with them and recruiting and seeing how hard they work and how much time they sacrifice is something I wish I could have been able to continue, but things kept pulling me back home to southern California."

So, returning to the west coast is exactly what he did, and started working in an after-school program in Paramount.

After reconnecting with many of his former teachers, who were encouraged by what he was doing, many believed teaching was a great fit for him, and ended up convincing him that he should become certified to be a substitute teacher. After serving as a sub in Paramount, he realized that teaching was not right for him.

"From my experience with substitute teaching, I realized I was not a teacher," Gutierrez said. "It was tough. I have a lot of respect for teachers and what they do. Paramount is a large school where the student-teacher ratio was roughly 35:1, it was a lot to take on back then and some of the same challenges still exist now."

Realizing that he enjoyed and was much better at forging one-on-one relationships, he found the perfect blend in the role of guidance counselor.

"That was where I found my niche in the academic world," Gutierrez said. "I worked a lot with the athletes in that role, making sure those kids who wanted to play college athletics, that they had someone to guide them, and that was from my own experience. When I was in their situation, I didn't know how to get there, but fortunately I continued taking the right classes and getting the best grades, but that isn't the case for a lot of kids."

As his career kept evolving, he realized that while he enjoyed helping athletes go on to college, he had the urge to impact the entire student population and actually analyze and implement an entire framework for operating a school, and was presented with an opportunity to move into his current role as assistant principal at Paramount High.

Many of the lessons he learned in Paramount helped him succeed at Brown, and now he gets to help pass those same lessons along to the next generation of youth in his hometown, many of whom are first-generation Americans, looking to make their way without a blueprint in a new area with new challenges, just as he did when he ventured to a new life in Providence two decades ago.

"We definitely persevere through a lot of challenging times, individually and as a culture," he said. "You work hard and beat the odds, keep your head down and keep moving forward with it. You just don't quit."

Not only does that attitude persevere in teaching his students, but in his own family as well.

"My wife still has family down in Mexico, so we visit as often as we can," Gutierrez said. "That's an important part, to show my kids and to see those different parts of their life and who they are. We really try to keep that connection with them."

Gutierrez's great-grandfather, Gregorio Navarrete Loya (middle) and other members of his father's side of the family in Mexico.

Brown University Athletics

FEATURE: Paramount Lessons from Anjel Gutierrez

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