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Coach and Athletic Director

Burlingame High (CA) launches new year without longtime coach Frank Firpo

With a new school year starting, an individual who played an integral role in Burlingame High athletics will no longer be on hand. Frank Firpo ended a 45-year coaching career when he retired at the end of softball season.

Firpo is a San Francisco native who graduated from St. Ignatius in 1959 when that school was a power in West Bay parochial circles. Jim Brovelli and Ron Calcagno, who both went on to successful coaching careers, Brovelli at USF and Calcagno at St. Francis High, were basketball teammates of his. Firpo, who graduated from Santa Clara University, started his coaching and teaching career at Mills High in 1965. He moved to Burlingame in 1971.

"I love him, I owe so much to him," Burlingame athletic director and football coach John Philipopoulos said. "He schooled me. He's an icon around here."

Firpo coached softball, volleyball, girls basketball and boys basketball at Burlingame in addition to teaching history and physical education and serving as athletic director from 2000-06. He retired as a teacher in 2004.

"He's done it all," Philipopoulos said. "He's an old-school coach, the kind that coached all year round. And he's such a nice man."

Having spent the last 45 years involved in coaching at local high schools, Firpo has seen and been part of a series of changes: the introduction of the 3-point shot and shot clock in basketball, the changes in ethnic makeup of the student population in San Mateo County and (Read More...)