The Trojans are picking up right where they left off.
Two years ago, when the COVID pandemic wiped out the 2020 sports calendar midway through the baseball season, Skyline College was in the midst of a historic trajectory on the diamond. The Trojans were off to a 16-4 start when the season was canceled. Now, two years later, with mostly the same roster, Skyline is off to another fast start at 15-3.
Along with three key freshman additions, there is one major change in the Trojans’ dugout. Longtime associate head coach Tony Brunicardi has been promoted to head coach and field manager, with former manager Dino Nomicos stepping down with his promotion last November to Skyline’s interim athletic director and dean of kinesiology.
“I’ve got the greatest coaching staff, which has allowed me to take the role,” Brunicardi said. “Because it’s been a learning curve, obviously, and I’m replacing a legend — a living legend in Dino. So, I’ve got big shoes to fill.”
He sure does. Nomicos took over the program in 2000 when Skyline College had the reputation of being a land of misfit baseball toys. Nomicos quickly changed the stigma, remodeling the dilapidated digs of the rundown baseball diamond into a veritable field of dreams within a few short years.
Brunicardi pitched for Nomicos at Skyline in 2005-06. Then after suffering a career-ending injury as a transfer at Sacramento State, Brunicardi quickly went to work as a collegiate baseball coach. He went on to join Nomicos’s coaching staff in 2012 and has been a Trojan ever since.
“I was really happy here,” Brunicardi said of whether he had ambitions to apply as a head coach anywhere else during his coaching tenure at Skyline. “I had the best mentor in the world. I was coaching as the associate head coach here. This is home. This is where I played. This is where I wanted to be. Now, if opportunities hadn’t been able to arise here maybe in the next couple of years, I would have had to think about something. But it all worked out for the best.”
With Nomicos stepping down toward the end of the fall semester, the Trojans’ current coaching staff had already been assembled. Associate head coach and pitching coach Marcus Pointer and hitting coach Anthony Granato both played at Skyline, while Daly City native Chris Miguel and former Terra Nova baseball head coach Joey Gentile are from Skyline’s backyard.
Granato — in his first season on the Skyline staff after stepping down as the head baseball coach at Sacred Heart Prep following the 2021 campaign — is like family to Skyline’s new skipper, as Brunicardi graduated from Burlingame High School the same year as Granato’s younger brother Justin.
“So, I grew up at his house,” Brunicardi said. “He’s a brother. And he’s a brilliant baseball mind.”
Brunicardi knows from brothers. As the oldest of five siblings, he has three brothers — Steve, Andrew and Justin — with the youngest sibling, sister Nicole.
“I couldn’t be more happy to see him do what he does best,” said Nicole, currently a sophomore at Skyline. “I think his experience and his knowledge of the game really suits him. And I’m seeing him doing great things. Of course, I wouldn’t tell him that to his face.”
Somehow, Brunicardi didn’t go into law enforcement. That’s quite a feat, seeing as most from the Brunicardi household were destined to wear a badge.
His father Mike is a retired lieutenant after 30-plus years with the San Mateo Police Department and is now a fulltime instructor of administration of justice at College of San Mateo. His stepmother Valerie works in police administration. His brother Andrew is a police officer with the Menlo Park Police Department. And brother Justin is studying at San Francisco State with the intention of going into law enforcement.
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Brunicardi is the only member of his family working professionally in athletics.
“I never kind of knew what I really wanted to do outside of baseball,” Brunicardi said. “And I kind of fell into coaching, and it was because of Dino … and I just kind of fell in love with it.”
After coaching a fall ball team during his sophomore year at Skyline, Brunicardi transferred to Sac State. A fluke leg injury while fielding an infield grounder ended his career prematurely. But he soon took up with the Sac State coaching staff, and went on to coach at Yuba College and Cosumnes College before returning home to Skyline.
“Things happen for a reason,” Brunicardi said. “Things outside of my control. And I can help a lot more people — as much as I loved playing — I have the ability now to reach a lot more young men and help them reach their goals.”
When Brunicardi was announced as Skyline’s new head coach last November, many in the Trojans ranks weren’t surprised. Nomicos had told the team he’d be applying for the interim AD position if and when it came available.
“I think everyone knew he was going to go,” Skyline true freshman Jace Jeremiah said. “And that’s kind of why he was off to the side and let Tony take over everything.”
Even with the smooth transition, the dynamic in the Trojans dugout is most certainly different.
“There’s a little difference,” Skyline freshman Cam Grant said. “I mean, Dino, he brought the fire. Tony is very even-keel. That’s also good in a head coach. … It’s different but we like it.”
Grant is a freshman only because of the topsy-turvy world of collegiate athletics eligibility in the wake of the COVID closures. He is one of many current freshmen on Skyline’s roster who was part of the breakout 2020 squad. The canceled 2020 season did not count toward players’ eligibility, and all but one player now on roster — freshman Trey Zahursky — opted out of the eight-game 2021 season.
“It was tough,” Grant said. “But it was the circustances of the world. It’s understandable. But shoot man, it’s hard to walk away from that. Knowing what could have happened, what did happen, but now we’re here. We’re [15-3] now. Let’s get it done. We’ve got to keep working.”
Brunicardi recognizes how difficult it was for his players to navigate the pandemic and prides the Skyline coaching staff on two points. One year ago, when players were forced to play in pods and most had opted out of playing the 2021 season — a season in which the Trojans went 1-7 — the staff put the focus on players’ mental health. The proof of the staff’s commitment to this mission is in the resulting 2022 roster, as no players walked away from the baseball program.
Now, these two points are showing up on the field.
“They had two years of baseball taken away from them,” Brunicardi said. “And they’re playing like they had it taken away from them.”
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