There are times when Eddie Soto — that’s 51-year-old Eddie Soto, for the record — decides that showing is better than telling. Times where he puts the whistle down, steps out on the Cal State Dominguez Hills practice field and turns back the clock.
And when Soto turns back the clock, it’s not only the hands of the clock turning.
“I still jump in with guys and show them what I know. I think that’s important,” said Soto, the head coach of the CSUDH men’s soccer team. “They read about me and see that I was an All-American and say, ‘You’re not bad.’ Yeah, I’m not bad. I’m double their age.”
Yes, some things never change. Middle-aged Eddie Soto can still turn heads on a soccer field. The boy who once came home from seeing Argentinian icon Diego Maradona’s transcendent 1986 World Cup performance in Mexico City, threw away his baseball glove and became a soccer player so good he made the U.S Junior National Team two years later still turns heads with a ball at his feet.
The young man who tore up the Cal State Fullerton record book, scoring a still-record 18 goals in 1994 and leading the Titans to the national semifinals the year before still turns heads. He turned enough heads to earn induction into the Cal State Fullerton Athletic Hall of Fame Class of 2023. The former soccer forward will join soccer goalkeeper Karen Bardsley, wrestler T.J. Dillashaw, golfer Martha Wilkinson-Kirouac, former director of sports medicine Julie Max and the 1979 baseball team in this year’s class.
When Soto learned the news over the summer, for once, his head turned.
“I was shocked. We only have one soccer player in the Cal State Fullerton Hall of Fame and that’s Mike Fox. You look at the history of the program and the teams we’ve had and the players we’ve had and me being only the second player inducted is very humbling. I’m hoping it leads to more. I’m hoping it leads to some of our teams being inducted.”
Soto was quick to point out the team he thinks belongs — that 1993 Titans’ team that went 16-7-0, beat Oregon State, Cal, UCLA and Washington in the regular season and Fresno State, the University of San Diego and the University of San Francisco in the NCAA Tournament, reaching the national semifinals.
“We were a mid-major. Within three years, we were in the Final Four,” Soto said. “A lot of us played together, and we had so much success growing up, and it carried over into the Cal State Fullerton soccer program. We were all so successful playing together in club and all so driven. We looked forward to playing big teams, playing at Titan Stadium with our incredible fan base, the ‘Rag Patrol.’ (Head coach) Al Mistri was courageous enough to have us play ACC and Big Ten teams, and we would win. We were winning locally and on the national scene.
“It wasn’t just UCLA and USC as national powers on the West Coast. It was Cal State Fullerton as well.”
And Soto was a big reason why. In 1992, his first year with the Titans, Soto scored 12 goals, tied for eighth in the program’s single-season record book. During that 1993 season, he tallied eight. In 1994, Soto etched his name atop the program’s statistical pyramid, scoring 18 goals and adding five assists as the Titans reached the NCAA quarterfinals. The 18 goals remain a single-season record and the 41 points is third on the all-time single-season points ladder.
In his three years at CSUF, Soto scored 38 goals (tied for second), added 20 assists (tied for third) and finished with 98 career points (third). He was a second-team All-American in 1992 and honorable mention in 1993. Meanwhile, the Titans were 42-20-2 during Soto’s career.
This turned the heads of the fledgling New York Metro Stars of the new Major League Soccer, which drafted Soto in the eighth round of the inaugural MLS Player Draft. But the week he was supposed to play the L.A. Galaxy in the Rose Bowl for his first MLS game, the team released him.
“I was devastated. Confused. I was a young kid who didn’t understand what was happening,” he said. “It was odd the way things were run back then, but just like everything in life, you need luck and being in the right place at the right time, and I just didn’t have either. I had a really hard time with it because it was the first time where I wasn’t good enough.”
Soto redoubled his workouts. In 1998, he was drafted in the second round of the MLS Supplemental Draft by the San Jose Clash, but again, released in the preseason. As he saw it, Soto was a victim of a geographic bias in both places: he wasn’t from the New York/East Coast region with the Metro Stars and wasn’t a Northern California product with the Clash.
Soto eventually found a home with the United Soccer League A-League Orange County Zodiac, where he led the league in goals during his five-year stint in the A-League. By 2000, Soto had enough of the A-League grind. He retired.
He didn’t stay away from the field long. When he was playing at CSUF, he was approached to coach a club team in Brea. Soto jumped at the chance, leading an Under-15 team to its league title. For his efforts, he got fired.
“It was the first coaching job I ever had, and I got fired. But I was hooked,” he said. “I love helping. I love giving back. You get these kids who aspire to reach the level I did. I really enjoyed that aspect of it.”
Hooked enough that after he retired, Soto was working at DreamWorks as an IT recruiter. He got another blessing disguised as a phone call when Mistri called him to offer him an assistant job at CSUF.
“I had to think. Do I want to continue on this path, or do I want to jump into coaching full-time?” Soto said, pondering the pay cut he took. “I made the right choice because I’ve never worked a day in my life.”
Soto spent 2½ years as a Titans’ assistant. He spent two years as an assistant to the Long Beach State women’s team, before returning to CSUF under new coach Bob Ammann in 2006. Soto spent one year at his alma mater before UCLA brought him over for an eventual eight-year stint as an assistant.
All the while, Soto coached the L.A. Galaxy’s U-18 Academy Team. On the urging of former UCLA and Seattle Sounders head coach Sigi Schmid, who served as one of his mentors, Soto also coached the U.S. National Beach Soccer team for 12 years. He took the team to two FIFA World Cups and won a CONCACAF Region title. He was turning heads with a ball on his players’ feet.
In 2014, that led to his first head coaching job — at USF, where he won 40 games in five seasons. The 2017 Dons won the West Coast Conference for the first time in nine years and Soto was the WCC Coach of the Year. But Soto’s family was living in Southern California, while he was coaching 400 miles north because he didn’t want to uproot his family.
“I lost four years of my youngest’s soccer career because I wasn’t around. We were successful at USF. We had a high graduation rate, developed players, and had a great program,” Soto said. “But my family wasn’t with me. I knew I needed to be home.”
Soto took the Dominguez Hills job in 2019. He’s satisfied turning heads at the Division II level, where he and his staff were named United Soccer Coaches Division II West Region Coaching Staff of the Year in 2022.
“The amount of passion and compassion I have for these young men; I know how much they love the game, and I know how much I love teaching the game,” Soto said. “I’ve always enjoyed creating an environment where they enjoy coming to practice every day. That’s what I remembered about why I loved the game. That’s the culture I’ve created everywhere I’ve gone, and the kids really love that.”
