HARLINGEN – What do you know? Jiminy Cricket was indeed right. Dreams do come true. At least they have for Danny Gidora.
On Tuesday, Gidora, a former standout pitcher at Harlingen South who led the Hawks to the UIL state baseball championship game in 2007, officially became a business owner as he opened the doors at Gidora Training Sports Performance Academy.
Located at 1701 Kilgore Drive, which is actually located right between Harlingen and San Benito, Gidora Training Academy’s mission is to not only help athletes improve their overall physical performance, but also to help improve their mental performance.
“It’s the mental part of the game that often stops athletes from getting better,” Gidora said. “Athletes, especially young ones from around here, need to develop the mindset that anything is possible if they put their mind to it and have the mental discipline to go after their dreams.”
Gidora had been training athletes prior to Tuesday, however he had been doing so at a dusty, old field behind the Harlingen High KEYS Academy baseball stadium. But this past summer he got his degree in health and human performance – exercise science from UTRGV.
“After some encouragement from my co-owner, David Garcia, I decided I was ready to move forward with opening my own training facility,” he said. “It’s been a tough road getting here, but I had a lot of help along the way and it was worth all the work.”
Gidora admits that while he was unable to fulfill his own athletic dreams of one day pitching in the major leagues, he believes that helping others is what he was truly meant to do with his life.
“Athletically, I always fell just short, but through the journey I learned a lot along the way. And now I feel that through GT Training I can help a lot of athletes accomplish what they set out to do,” he said.
