Fresno City College men’s soccer coach won his 250th game at the college after a 1-0 victory against Cosumnes River on Oct. 13.

In his 17 seasons, Eric Solberg has experienced many high and lows as the head coach of the men’s soccer team, but one thing he relishes is the environment and the culture he has built at FCC.

“Winning over the years has been about getting good players and building an environment where they can succeed,” Solberg said. “That’s hard to do and we’ve been fortunate to have built a great program here.”

He has a myriad of accomplishments — the Western Region United States Coach of the Year in 2002; winning 11 conference titles, and advancing his teams to the Final Four State Championships six times in his tenure.

Solberg’s record is 250-79-67 overall and 92-19-22 in conference matches. With many wins comes crushing defeats like the 2002 loss to the defending state champions Santa Rosa College, after the Rams led 2-0 with about 8 minutes remaining.

“Dec. 8, 2002 is a day I’ll always remember,” he said. “We were 10 minutes away from a state title.”

Yet, he’s had victories like upsetting the nationally ranked American River in 2002 and avenging an early season loss against Evergreen Valley College in penalty kicks after coming back from a 1

goal deficit with only minutes remaining. His team advanced in the state playoffs — employing every skill Solberg had taught them.

“To keep coaching for over 17 years means you’ve won a certain amount of games per year which is hard to do.” Solberg said. “It means we’ve been a consistent team program and recruited good players. At the end of the day, coaches are in charge of the program, but the players make the programs.”