Solberg Is National Coach Of The Year

The Fresno City College soccer program scored big this year.

Eric Solberg, coach for the men’s soccer team, received the National Coach of the Year award from the National Soccer Coaches Association of America.

The award considered all the junior college soccer teams in the nation. Solberg was congratulated by 10,000 people who attended the awards ceremony at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Jan. 17, 2017.

Solberg has had a long history with the FCC athletics program. Before he came to FCC, he played baseball for Fresno State as a pitcher, and then went on to play for the Kansas City Royals.

He spent 29 years as the men’s assistant baseball coach at FCC, but his real passion is soccer. After 11 years of coaching baseball, Solberg went back to school to get his masters degree in education, so he could get the position as the head soccer coach.

“The only way I was going to get a job here was through soccer,” Solberg said.  For 18 years now, since his first year coaching in 1998, he has had a successful coaching career.

During Solberg’s career at FCC, the men’s soccer team has won 14 league championships and set the school record for most games won with any team in 1999, with 19 wins, and became one of the final four in the California Community College Athletic Association championships.

“The key to success at this level is to make this place a viable option to play soccer,” says Solberg. “You have to make the players feel wanted.”

In this 2016 season, the men’s soccer team went 19-1 and made the final four in the CCCAA Championships for the seventh time, Nearly beating the record of any school in Caifornia. The Rams lost to San Antonio on penalty kicks during the final match.

“Winning this award was a very emotional and surreal experience,” he said. “It was a real reflection on my life and career. You have to give up a lot to be successful.”

Solberg is not the only FCC coach to win this award. Oliver Germond, head of the women’s soccer team, won the same award back in 2014.

Solberg said he appreciated this year’s team, and that it was an honor to coach them.

“I feel the players earned this award, not me. This year’s team had a real special connection,” Solberg said. “Throughout my 40 years of coaching sports, this team was the closest knit team I have ever had the pleasure to coach.”