Nuno's legacy enshrined in Hall of Fame

The bus carrying the Porterville High boys soccer team sat idling alongside a curb, ready for the team’s last road trip of the season — a visit to Mineral King Bowl in Visalia where No. 1-seeded Golden West High awaited.

With the Division II Valley championship on the line, Porterville coach Francisco Nuno’s mind was deep in thought. He didn’t notice an old, rusty penny near his feet just before he and assistant coach Angel Vallin boarded the bus.

“Mr. Nuno, pick it up,” Vallin said.

The voice interrupted Nuno’s trance.

“What? What are you talking about?” Nuno responded.

Vallin said, pointing, “That’s the lucky penny; we’re going to win tonight.”

“Angel, I don’t believe in that stuff,” said Nuno, who finally stepped toward the bus.

“You better pick it up!” Vallin shouted after him.

Nuno paused, then humored the old superstition and picked up the coin anyway.

That night, the Panthers scored in the final five minutes of the match to win, 1-0, and give Nuno his first Valley title.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Nuno recalled of that winter evening in 2001. “I thought I was gonna finish as one of the winningest coaches in the Valley to never win one Valley championship... I thought maybe there was a curse on us.”

To this day, Nuno possesses that penny. “Now, that’s what I do — I pick up the pennies.”

Perhaps Nuno understands more than anyone just how much effort — and luck — it takes to secure a title among the best soccer programs in the Central Valley. After all, that season was Nuno’s 25th as Porterville’s coach.

Nuno would go on to win one more Valley title in 2005 before retiring after 30 years at the helm, 20 East Yosemite League championships, some 400 players coached and an all-time record of 518-133-66 — an astounding 77 percent against a lineup that included Division I juggernauts Stockdale, Bullard, Bakersfield and both Clovis high schools.

When he stepped down in 2007, Nuno ranked No. 1 in the state of California and No. 11 in the country all-time. He never claimed a losing season and missed the playoffs just twice.

And tonight, at a banquet in Fresno, those numbers will parlay Nuno’s success toward a spot in the California Coaches Association Hall of Fame. He’ll be one of three inductees this year (the others are Berkeley High girls basketball coach Gene Nakamura and Poway High wrestling coach Wayne Branstetter) out of an endless field of retired California coaches.

“I think it’s an honor, but it’s for our community,” Nuno insisted. “It says we have winners here. It was Porterville High — the kids at Porterville High — that made this program what it is you see now.”

To appreciate the current program, which is now led by Vallin, Nuno hopes others realize just how far it has come in the past three decades. Today, Panthers can walk onto the pitch before each game with real confidence, a real chance to win... and real uniforms.

When Nuno arrived to Porterville in 1976, he could see the talent was there. Previous coach Bob Perez was fresh off three EYL crowns and “the kids were basically coaching themselves,” as Nuno put it.

But for the first several seasons of Nuno’s tenure, Porterville High was known as “the soccer team with the football jerseys.” The soccer program had little funding for its own gear, so it took hand-me-downs from the football squad.

“We were playing kids from Fresno and Bakersfield and they competed with all these adidas shirts and Nike stuff, and we’re wondering what we could afford,” Nuno said. “There were times we didn’t even match.”

Battling against the larger-city youth was a motley arrangement of Panthers from Porterville, Springville and, notably, Terra Bella, where many of the players hailed from low-income families.

“At least one-third of my players were from Terra Bella,” Nuno said. “That little, dinky town... so much talent. They had nothing else, yet they were some of my bread and butter.”

The talent, the humility, the readiness to learn the game — those were the traits that made for a perfect storm when Nuno showed up from Fresno.

“Most of the kids had the same background I had; it was like a beautiful relationship,” Nuno said.

The son of a railroad worker in Guadalajara, Mexico, where he was born and raised, Nuno understood what it was like to have little else besides a passion for soccer, which often meant one-on-one with the dogs in the streets.

He just didn’t realize what he was missing until his family moved to Fresno when he was 15.

“Once we crossed the border, I knew I wanted to stay here,” Nuno said through a thick accent that never disappeared after 50 years. “The moment I crossed, I saw the opportunities here.”

Once Nuno returned from service in the U.S. Army (he was drafted during the Vietnam War), an opportunity arose in the form of an invite to play for the Fresno State men’s soccer team.

There was only one problem.

“By that time I was married with the kids, and I said, ‘I can’t do this,’” Nuno recalled. “I’m 26 and out of shape.”

But Nuno wanted it. For the next two years, he attended school and played soccer during the day while working the night shift at French’s Foods in Fresno. In his first year with the Bulldogs, he led the team in scoring. The next year, he was named team MVP and an All-American in the division’s West region.

“My two years at Fresno State were unbelievable; I really loved it,” Nuno said. “That was the highlight of my life. I’m a Bulldog and always will be.”

But more than any personal accomplishment, Nuno says he took more satisfaction out of seeing his young pupils exceed expectations beyond soccer.

“I had to play the role of the parent,” he said. “You have to make sure they do their homework, make sure they have the grades. You have to be firm with the kids. You have to be a counselor.

“You have to take this job seriously,” he continued. “You’re dealing with youngsters you’re going to impact the rest of their lives.”

It wasn’t uncommon for Nuno to buy lunch for starving players, offer them rides home from practice or drag them to school due to the neglect of their parents.

“I had parents tell me their kid wasn’t going to be in high school by the time he’s a sophomore — ‘Don’t even bother with him anymore,’ they said. Those kids made it through high school,” Nuno said. “I made them stay; I would drag them by the neck after soccer was over and take them directly to adult school if I had to.

“I don’t think many coaches understand you have to be all those things for the kids,” Nuno added. “But it’s all worth it. Coaching in high school is a beautiful thing.”