Central’s Lopez reflects on a successful soccer coaching career
EL CENTRO — On Valentine’s Day, Central Union High School Spartans girls soccer coach Ramon Lopez saw his team’s season end by losing in the CIF-San Diego Section Division II playoffs. While it wasn’t the first time over his previous 20 seasons that his team finished with a playoff loss, this one was particularly bittersweet because Lopez knew it would be his last.
“It felt different,” he recalled. “I knew it would be a tough match and we lost, but it actually the decision had hit me harder after the last IVL game,” Lopez said, referring to his team’s Imperial Valley League-title clinching 3-0 win over Imperial, his sixth straight IVL crown.“My decision was already made yet it felt totally different … It hurts to lose, but this was more.”
For Lopez, after all the years at the helm of the Central girls program, and over 30 years of coaching youth soccer, it was time to step away. and many emotions ran through him including remembering his former assistant coach Alberto Vasquez, who assisted him for the first 11 years at Central and who passed away in 2019.
“I waited until the players left and I had an emotional moment at mid-field thinking about my friend and assistant coach,” Lopez said.
“We had always talked about walking away together and I wanted him to know in spirit we were.”
For Lopez, whose ties to Central High, his players, his family and soccer run deep, the emotions likewise ran deep closing the book on a playing and coaching career that began before he became a Spartan player in 1984.
Lopez grew up playing youth soccer in El Centro under this father who coached him on the Panteras, under Jim Graham with the Dynamo EC Soccer Club and then at Central High under coach and mentor Nabil Naujaim.
“I played on the 1986 team when we won our first Southern Section CIF title and in ‘88 I was a senior and a captain when we were CIF cochamps,” Lopez said. “Most of us on those teams had played a couple of years of Dynamo or other teams, and we were used to playing at a high competitive level.”
Along with Central teammate and current Brawley boys coach
Frank Felix, Lopez received a scholarship to CSU-San Bernadino but following his freshman year he returned to the Valley to play for Imperial Valley College, where he concluded his playing days.
After spending time as a youth soccer referee, Lopez reunited with Felix and his Dynamo soccer coach Jim Graham to lead the 1994 Dynamo squad to the CYSA Open State Cup.
Lopez’s coaching girls soccer was sparked when his wife, Veronica, developed an interest in the sport.
“In 1994 Vero wanted to play and started a team, and I was supporting her, and that sparked my interest, and by the second year I was coaching,” Lopez said.
“I coached the women for six years and we played in Torno de los Barrios in Mexicali, and we were competing with their big teams and that drew me more into it.”
Lopez was also ready to take on more coaching and joined forces with Naujaim who had transitioned to Central’s girls’ coach.
“I began helping Coach Naujaim with the girls’ off-season program because at that time the school’s coach could not work with the players out-of-season,” Lopez said.
“Four years into it, he approached me about coaching as he was thinking of retiring and the following year when he did, he recommended me and I took over.”
For Lopez, who isn’t on the Central High staff, it was a dream come true.
“I was fortunate that I was able to get the time off of work,” Lopez said. “And I was able to start living my dream of giving back to Central what they had given to me.”
The result has been 15 IVL championships, the product of Lopez’s and his teams’ dedication and work ethic as he has spent many of his off-seasons coaching competitive girls travel teams.
Competing in the San Diego Presidio League and using players from Central, Southwest and Holtville, Lopez’s Dynamo Under-16 girls team won the 2017 CYSA
Open State Cup.
Lopez balanced the demands of coaching with his family by blending them together, coaching daughters Vianey and Brigitt at Central.
“Vianey’s dream was to be a professional player, and I pushed her to be the best she could be,” Lopez said noting that Vainey attended New Mexico Highlands University on a soccer scholarship.
“In Brigitt’s case it was the fact that we are a soccer family,” he said.
“It was hard coaching my daughters, but in the end it was worth it.”
The “family business” as it were included Veronica, who is a classified employee at Central and has been Lopez’s on-campus presence and overall “soccer mom.”
“Without Vero, none of what I did would have been possible because she was at the school to handle grades, the fundraising … just so many things,” Lopez said. “She let me concentrate on the coaching.”
The help from Lopez’s family included his brother Francisco who played at both Central and Southwest and, for the past three seasons, has been his assistant coach. His niece Emily plays forward for Central.
While the weight of Lopez’s retirement decision probably will probably not fully set in until next fall, he’s at peace with his decision and philosophical about his life going forward.
“Soccer has been my routine so I am adjusting after 31 years of coaching,” Lopez said. “But I got to live my dream and get the program to where I wanted it and I enjoyed every moment.”