Bernie Lilavois has over 30 years of experience in professional soccer as a player, coach, and now an owner. He has played or coached in nearly every professional indoor or outdoor soccer league in the United States since the early 90′s. He was a member of the United States National Futsal Team player pool from 2000-2005 and was also named the first ever Head Coach of the United States National Arena Soccer Team in 2008. He has scored over 1,000 points in his professional playing career, which started at the young age of 20 in the spring of 1991.
Lilavois grew up playing youth soccer in San Gabriel, California and attended La Salle High School in Pasadena, California where he held the school’s record for goal scoring. He is a member of their La Salle High School Athletic Hall of Fame. Lilavois then attended Cal State Northridge playing on the men’s soccer team in 1988. That year, Northridge finished runner up to Florida Tech in NCAA Division II Championship game.
In 1990, Lilavois has a brief stint with Ayr United in Scottish First Division as a trial player which led to signing his first professional contract back in the United States with the San Francisco Bay Blackhawks and winning the 1991 American Professional Soccer League title with the team as a rookie. He played four seasons with the Blackhawks before moving to the indoor game in 1994 and signing with the San Jose Grizzlies of the Continental Indoor Soccer League. He led the team in all offensive categories in his first indoor season. In 1995, he began the season with the Grizzlies, playing seven games before being traded to the Anaheim Splash on September 1, 1995. He would continue to play for Anaheim through the 1997 season. That year was his most productive for the team, netting 44 goals in 27 games as he was named to the CISL All-Star Team. In the fall of 1995, Lilavois signed with the Cincinnati Silverbacks in the National Professional Soccer League. He would play three seasons for the Silverbacks scoring 101 goals in 74 games before being picked up in a dispersal draft by the Buffalo Blizzard in 1998. He was then traded to the Harrisburg Heat in 1999 and would play three seasons netting 119 goals in 81 games. During the indoor off season he played for the Charleston Battery in 1998 and was named the team MVP. In the spring of 1999, he joined the Portland Pythons of the World Indoor Soccer League where he led the league in scoring before returning back to Harrisburg. In the summer of 2000, Lilavois returned to outdoor soccer with the Connecticut Wolves in the USL A-League and served as the Team Captain.
Lilavois retired in 2001 but returned to the game with the Cleveland Force in March of 2003 for late season playoff run in the Major Indoor Soccer League. After he played only three games in March 2003, he retired again. In October 2005, the expansion Stockton Cougars of the MISL signed Lilavois as a free agent. He continued to play through the end of the 2006-2007 seasons, and then he was hired as the teams’ player/head coach. He won a Professional Arena Soccer League Title as their player/head coach in March of 2009 before purchasing the franchise rights for an expansion team in Southern California which as the Anaheim Bolts played two seasons at the Anaheim Arena in 2011-2012 and 2012-2013.
Lilavois was then awarded the franchise rights to Ontario, California for the 2013-2014 PASL season which currently play its home games at the Ontario Toyota Arena and takes on the day to day role of Team President of the Ontario Fury. Under the leadership of Lilavois, the Ontario Fury has played 6 successful seasons (2013-2019) and now enters their seventh year of action with consistent growth in attendance, community events, youth soccer camps and the popular Health’s a Kick school assembly program.
MASL 
