VENTURA COUNTY HALL OF FAME : Hall of Fame Inductee Magdaleno a Soccer Fixture

Joe Magdaleno never played competitive soccer, but he has coached the game for 18 years and has become one of the area’s most successful high school coaches.

“My oldest son, Joey, wanted to play a sport when he was 5 and soccer was perfect,” Magdaleno said. “I had played football and baseball, but I didn’t let my kids play football until they were 14.”

Magdaleno, who will be inducted into the Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame on Saturday, became involved with his kids’ youth soccer games and has been coaching the sport since.

“It’s a tremendous honor to be inducted, but I was very surprised,” Magdaleno, 52, said. “I’ve been doing this for so many years because I love kids.”

Magdaleno was a running back and outfielder at Ventura High and Ventura College, but soccer quickly became his passion.

He has been the boys’ soccer coach at Santa Paula High since 1980 and has been named Frontier League coach of the year seven times, including in 1995.

In 1993 he was the Ventura County and CIF coach of the year. That season the National Soccer Coaches Assn. named Magdaleno the state high school coach of the year.

He was also CIF coach of the year in ’88. Magdaleno has a 235-65-19 record and his teams have won seven Frontier League titles.

One of the highlights of Magdaleno’s career came when his son, Joe Jr., was named CIF soccer player of the year in 1988 while on the Santa Paula team.

Magdaleno is an academic counselor at Isbelle Middle School. He says people frequently ask him when he plans to retire from coaching.

“I always say this is my last year, but I’ve been saying that for four years now,” he said.

Magdaleno says he ends up staying because underclassmen ask him to stick around until they graduate.

“And there’s always a new class coming in so it just goes on,” he said.