John Noce (CSM Class of 1951)
Bulldog baseball coach with 772 career wins, 1962–1992
Three-time Olympic baseball coach
Only two California community college baseball coaches have won more games than John Noce, who led CSM to 772 victories including 13 conference titles. Three times, his Bulldogs were runner-ups for the state championship. Noce’s 772-412 (.652) record set a state community college record that stood from his retirement in 1992 for more than 15 years.
In his 31 seasons of Bulldog baseball, Noce saw 72 of his players go on to professional careers, including Angels pitcher and Royals pitching coach Bob McClure and Yankees relief pitcher John Wetteland, the 1996 World Series MVP.
Fifty-two of Noce’s players became coaches, including current Bulldog coach Doug Williams.
Noce, who grew up speaking Italian, also was assistant coach of Italy’s national team at the 1984, 1992 and 1996 Olympics.
The American Baseball Coaches Association honors Noce in January 2023 with its Lefty Gomez Award for his lifetime of local, national and international contributions to the game.
Noce’s perfectionism shines through in a 2008 oral history. Asked to recall special moments, he jumped to the painful losses.
“1962, my first team, might have been my best team,” Noce said. “We went to the NorCal finals in Fresno. We went to 14 innings and were ahead by two runs in the 12th. Fresno City College rallied and got two runs with two out and nobody on to tie the score and eventually win in the 14th.
To this day, when I see Jim Loustalot and Pete Cocconi and Rich Jefferies, John DeVos, players on that team ... that day comes up all the time.
“The losses, they stay with you a little longer than the wins. But we had quite a few wins.”
As a teenager at Richmond High School (coincidentially, Gomez’s alma mater as well), Noce knew he wanted one day to coach baseball. Contra Costa County did not then have a community college. So the young catcher was recruited for CSM by Bulldog coaches Herb Hudson and Ray Balsey.
“They talked to my mom and dad ... and they were impressed with Herb and Ray, and it was OK for me to come to San Mateo.”
Noce lived in Lowell Hall, directly above the cafeteria on the Coyote Point campus, for $10 a month with 60 other male students.
“There are different things going on in life that I hadn’t run across before,” he remembered. “The things I learned in Lowell Hall—it probably should have been a three-unit class.”
As a student, Noce practiced at the Delaware campus and played games at Fitzgerald Field in what is now San Mateo Central Park. Fitzgerald Field lingered into the College Heights years as Noce battled to get good-quality turf for the diamond on the hill.
“The baseball field was rock,” he said. “It was all fill. I saw they were planting grass and I couldn’t believe they were planting grass on all that rock.”
He played minor-league ball in Stockton and Ventura, but said, “My dream was to go to a small school and make them ring-tailed wonders.” His coaching debut was at Half Moon Bay High School, whose entire student body numbered 150. “This was the setting I dreamed about, but it was not the most realistic ambition.”
After coaching at other Peninsula high schools, Noce was again recruited to CSM.
“Going back to your alma mater—it’s kind of special,” he said. “Everybody wants to go back to their alma mater. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I never thought seriously about going to the other level.”
He had a special respect for college President Julio Bortolazzo, a micromanager par excellence.
“We played a game at Cabrillo College and I was in the school station wagon with the players and I was speeding and I got a ticket. The next morning, before I even came to school, I got a phone call from Julio saying, ‘What’s this about this ticket? We’re not paying it.’ I tell you, he had a network going on.”
Before California community colleges were allowed to recruit in counties contiguous to their own, Noce compiled his win record with talent from only 17 or 18 San Mateo County high schools.
“I was proud that in my 30-plus years we played basically with San Mateo County kids,” he said. “The better kids in the county wanted to come to CSM. We were able to flourish.
“The administration at CSM was very fortunate to have a group of dedicated coaches to make athletics a topnotch program. You’re going Saturdays, Sundays, long hours. That was the nature of the beast and I relished it.”
He and his team—and the college as a whole—persevered in the face of Proposition 13 budget cuts, which Noce said led to “a serious cutback in groundskeeping.
“It was a constant battle to get work done on our field. Then, too, some people in those days filmed [their players]. We really never did, probably to the detriment of our kids. Again, that was financial; we couldn’t afford to buy all those cameras and things.
“We got by because our kids could play.”
In the summers, Noce worked for the Italian baseball federation. In 1970–71, he and assistant Bulldog coach Larry Kaufman brought CSM players to Italy to play local teams. Noce coached the Italian national team at three Olympics: Los Angeles in 1984 (when baseball was still a demonstration sport), Barcelona in 1992 and Atlanta in 1996.
Asked to recall memorable students, Noce said, “I hate to distinguish one from the other. To this day, when I think of them, it warms my heart. When they played for me, at that time, they were No. 1 in my heart. Some of them gave me some gray hair. My 1972 group was a big contributor to that, but they were good.
“One of them, Bob McClure, the pitching coach for Kansas City Royals, was on my 72–73 team. He was a fierce competitor. He wanted to play pro in the worst way. He finally got the opportunity. He showed them all wrong. He played 13 years in the big league.”
In 1994, the American Baseball Coaches Association inducted Noce into its Hall of Fame. CSM followed in 2011, making Noce an inaugural member of its Athletics Hall of Fame.
Four of Noce’s five sons including Paul, a former infielder for the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds, also coach baseball. His daughter Jenna last year became Director of Baseball Operations at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
