Bill Neal, a local soccer icon who taught into his 90s at Fresno City College, passes away

Bill Neal, who passed away last month at 94, was a fixture in Fresno soccer circles, youth leagues with the Baird Bears on up to Fresno City College. He started and coached the Rams’ highly successful programs, the men’s in 1975 and later the women’s in 1987, and was the first inductee in the California Junior College Soccer Hall of Fame.

Neal, a Bakersfield native, also was a U.S. Navy veteran of World War II and served in the California State Military Reserve. He was a private pilot, teaching his son Gary how to fly.

“That was something special between him and my dad, the flying,” said Dr. Nicolin Neal, one of his six grandchildren.

Neal also was a mathematician, in 1962 inventing the Numerical Base Conversion Device. He was an avid fisherman and he had a sweet tooth; he loved chocolate. But he loved to teach, at Stanford University, at Bullard, Edison and LeGrand high schools, but primarily at Fresno City College. He started there in 1953 and retired in 1990. He was faculty emeritus in 2004 and returned after his retirement, teaching until he was 92 years old.

Neal, who attended Bakersfield College, Fresno State, UC Santa Barbara and had a master’s degree from Stanford, had that passion.

‘Students appreciated him’

“I know his students appreciated him,” Dr. Neal said. “We would go out to dinner sometimes and I remember one time in particular, we ran into one of his former students and they saw him and remembered him and were so happy to see him and thankful that he had helped them so much in math.

“He got that quite a bit. I’ve heard a lot of stories of a lot of people saying, ‘I would never have passed math if it wasn’t for him.’”

“I was actually a student in his calculus class back in 1975,” said Bill Allen, math department chairman at Clovis Community College and before that Reedley College.

“He was a good teacher and so I’m sure he missed the classroom. I’m sure he figured, ‘I’ll do some of this for a while and see how it goes.’ He must have enjoyed it because he kept doing it.”

When Allen learned that Neal was back in the classroom, he placed a call.

“I wanted to see if he would teach a class for us, but he already had a couple at City College and that’s all he wanted,” Allen said. “But at that time I think he said he was 88.”

Neal had met and married his wife Shirley when at Stanford and together they had four sons – Jeff, Gary, Alan and Craig, who passed away shortly after birth.

Neal is survived by sons Gary and Alan, six grandchildren and six great grandchildren.

Visitation Tuesday

A visitation is scheduled for Tuesday from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Stephens and Bean Funeral Chapel, 202 N. Teilman Ave. in Fresno. A private, invitation-only memorial service will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made on behalf of Bill Neal to the Fresno-Madera Agency on Aging, which provides seniors a number of services including nutrition risk screening and education and a home-delivered meal program for those 60 or older who are home-bound because of illness, incapacity or disability.

“He inspired a lot of people and always had a great attitude, was always upbeat and just a sweet grandpa, as well,” Dr. Neal said.

In retirement Neal was active with the Masons, holding a number of ranks including Past Master, Past Master Scottish Rite. But he also would attend Fresno City College soccer matches, keeping up not only with the programs but a sport that he had elevated at the California community college level.

“To be where we are today, Bill Neal is definitely part of that,” said Eric Solberg, who coaches men’s soccer at Fresno City and also is an assistant on the Rams baseball team.

“(At Fresno City College) you’ve got two programs that are the perennial Top 5 in the state of California, the men’s and the women’s programs. We’ve won two of the past three state championships. The women won in 2017. We’re always ranked in the Top 5, and not only that you have two full-time faculty members and two full-time coaches and none of that would have ever happened without Bill.”

Neal in his 90s needed a walker to get around, but he never got far away from two passions in his life.

“He was a good teacher,” Allen said. “He always had a real positive outlook. He was never negative. He was always in a good mood.

“I think he appreciated the life he had and enjoyed it very much.”