THE BAKERSFIELD CALIFORNIAN
BY RON STAPP
During his 31-year career as a football coach, including the past 11 seasons at Liberty, Bryan Nixon has always divided his team’s goals in stages or phases of a game.
Whether it was winning the preseason, a league title or bringing home a section, regional or state championship, or beating an opponent in the trenches or on special teams, for the most part, Nixon’s success worked like a well-oiled machine.
On Thursday, Nixon’s professional career moved into a new stage when the 1989 Shafter High graduate announced he was retiring from coaching with plans to prepare for a potential future in high school administration.
“It’s just something that I’ve been thinking about over a lot of conversations with my family and prayers, and the timing (was right),” Nixon said. “It’s been a wonderful 31-year career.”
It sure has.
Nixon’s coaching resume is jam-packed with successful seasons, highlighted by the 2022 CIF State Division 1-A championship, capped by a 48-20 victory over Pittsburg at Saddleback College.
The victory followed up a runner-up finish in the same final the year before after the Patriots defeated Pittsburg in the Northern California Regional 1-A Bowl Game.
“It’s tough,” said Liberty athletic director Tim Davis. “He’s one of those guys that’s irreplaceable. As far as I’m concerned, he’s the best coach in town, by far. I mean there’s some good coaches, but he’s second to none.”
All told, Nixon was 213-94-1, with 13 league championships, three section titles and six runner-up finishes with brief stops at Frazier Mountain and Shafter, and 12 years at Centennial before moving to Liberty in 2013. His Patriots teams captured seven of the last nine league titles and compiled a 26-game league winning streak before losing to Frontier 25-20 this season.
“I know there've been a lot of amazing people that I’ve been able to work with and coach with,” Nixon said. “A lot of amazing kids that have come through our programs and the relationships that we’ve built. Those are the things I cherish the most. Just working with all the people that have helped the program or anything along those lines. Something that will always stick out with me is the relationships of everybody as a whole.”
Among those relationships is with a handful of players that reached the NFL, including Centennial graduates Cody Kessler and Jared Norris, and former Liberty standouts Jordan Love and Krys Barnes.
“I think more than the wins and losses and state championship, he runs a great program and expects a lot out of his kids,” said Davis, who is hoping Nixon’s replacement will be hired by January. “He builds men.”
While working on his master’s degree in administration is now on the top of his to-do list, Nixon will also have an opportunity to focus more on watching his son Jace’s football games next season.
Jace, who converted from quarterback to tight end this season, is scheduled to graduate at the end of the school year and has committed to play at Fresno State next season.
“It just happened; It’s just one of those things, it felt like it was the right time to do it,” said Nixon, who plans to continue teaching at Liberty while working toward his master's degree. “I think with my son being done … I coached a long time before him. It’s one of those things where you want to reevaluate after that time and that’s kind of where we’re at. It’s just on to the next phase or the next season and we’ll see where it takes us.”