On a sunny Tuesday afternoon earlier this month, Reagan High School head boys soccer coach Gilbert Villareal made his way toward the visitors’ side of Comalander Stadium.

A rivalry match and early test in District 27-6A play awaited. Villareal is running the gamut of pre-game duties. He attaches a large, green Reagan banner to a fence behind his team’s bench and fills out his starting lineup card.

Villareal soon transforms into game mode. Wearing a gray T-shirt with a Reagan emblem, a green baseball cap, black shorts, black tennis shoes and sunglasses, he looks on attentively from the sideline, arms folded, scanning the field for an advantage to capitalize on and a flaw to fix. Periodically, he writes on a piece of paper.

Nearly two hours later, Reagan High School head girls soccer coach Heather Boss-Durante makes her way into the same space. She has on black sweats, a gray fleece and gray tennis shoes. With a hand in each pocket for warmth on a chilly evening, she alternates between chomping on a piece of gum and shouting instructions or encouragement.

“Guys, why does she have that much room?” she asks her players when an opposing player is left uncontested. “Win the first five,” she tells her players as the second half is about to start.

Such is gameday fare for Villareal and Boss-Durante. This season, though, game days carry a special, added significance for the veteran coaches. Both have their respective teams in the hunt to win a District 27-6A championship entering Tuesday’s 17th annual Ian’s Cup, which honors Ian Fincke, who played soccer and attended both Reagan and Johnson. Fincke died at age 16 in October 2008 from a traumatic brain injury sustained during a skateboarding accident. The school with the highest aggregate score on the night receives a trophy.

The Reagan girls (15-1-2 overall, 7-1-1 in league competition) take on Johnson (14-2-1, 8-0-1) at 5 p.m. Tuesday at Comalander in a contest with district-title implications. Johnson, seeking to move a step closer to claiming a fourth straight district crown, is three points ahead of second-place Reagan and Clark (17-3-1, 7-1-1). LEE, Madison, Brandeis and Churchill are in a logjam for the league’s final playoff berth. The boys match is at 7 p.m. and Reagan (15-3-3, 7-0-2) is in second place in 27-6A, two points behind LEE (14-3-1, 8-0-1). Churchill (16-3-1, 6-2-1) is third, and Brandeis (6-5-3, 4-4-1) is fourth, and Johnson (6-9-2, 3-4-2) sits in fifth and is still in playoff contention.

Boss-Durante and Villareal are leading the Rattlers to success with their own kids playing on the team. Emi Durante, who is signed with St. Mary’s, is a senior midfielder. Evan Villareal is a sophomore who grew up as a goalkeeper but has made the transition to a field player. They both scored spectacular goals at tournaments on the same weekend in early January.

“It’s just awesome being able to be here with my dad,” Evan said. “He’s been a coach my whole life, whether it be at home or on the field. It’s a crazy experience I don’t think a lot of kids get. I’m one of the lucky ones. It’s been great. I know that I have to do certain things that other people don’t because he’s my coach, and I have that team-player aesthetic, instead of just being the coach’s son. I think we’ve worked well together. It’s only better things to come.”

There have been plenty of instances in San Antonio-area high school soccer history where a parent has coached a child –Jay’s Pete Pruneda II (son Pete III), New Braunfels’ Larry Schaffer (son Tim), Clark’s Walter Rule (son JonConnor), New Braunfels Canyon’s Danny Bueno (son Vince), Madison’s Michael Babcock (daughters Brooke and Hailey), Brennan’s Zoila Hurley (daughter Kyleen), Taft’s Scott Davis (daughter Alejandra), O’Connor’s Estani Martinez (daughters Aryana and Ayeli), Uvalde’s Keith Pendleton (daughter Addison), Pleasanton’s Brant Bird (daughter Madelyn), MacArthur’s Hector Cano (daughter Salma) and La Vernia’s Season Caughlin (daughters Skylin and Haven), to name a few — but this is believed to be the first time that the boys and girls head coaches at one school have had a child playing on their respective teams at the same time.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” said Gilbert Villareal, whose older son Ethan was also around for the 2018 season, of him and Boss-Durante’s unique situation. “We obviously share a lot, and get along well, and work well together. I think she’s really relishing the opportunity to see Emi play. It’s kind of wild how it’s come full circle.”

Eight years ago, Villareal was the head coach, and Boss-Durante was his assistant when the Rattlers advanced to the UIL Class 6A state final, losing a 1-0 heartbreaker to Alief Elsik at Birkelbach Field in Georgetown. Reagan dominated the match, but Elsik converted on a penalty kick to prevail. Evan Villareal experienced the journey firsthand. The players on the team treated him like a younger sibling, and he even coined the phrase “Eugene-us” for goalkeeper Eugene Albo, a play on genius and a nod to Albo’s stellar performances that season.

“Even now, but more so back then, it was amazing how all the players treated him, just so kind and loving with him,” Gilbert Villareal said. “He was pretty upset after that game (vs. Alief Elsik), and I thought it was because we lost. But he was upset he was going to miss some of the seniors that were leaving that year.”

Boss-Durante has been a trailblazer throughout her soccer career. She played on the boys team at Smithson Valley because the school didn’t have a girls program at the time. She was the boys head coach at Stevens and at her alma mater. Smithson Valley made the playoffs a year ago, and Boss-Durante admits she was happy with where she was at.

But somewhere during one of those late-night drives home, a realization took hold. Soccer has given Heather Boss-Durante so much — a passion for a game that has spanned a lifetime, an opportunity to play at the NCAA Division I level and a profession that has produced a resume with more than 200 wins, district championships and playoff appearances.

But something was missing. Her daughter was about to play her final high school season and head off to college, but because she was often coaching her own team, Boss-Durante had often lived vicariously through updates from husband Tony Durante, a midfielder on MacArthur’s 1995 and ’96 state-tournament teams.

“Mom guilt’s real,” said Boss-Durante, who was also the head girls coach at Brandeis and Warren. “I would get home, and they’re already in bed; her game’s already over. I’m trying to text and see how it went. Just missing a lot of things.”

A prime opportunity came after the 2025 season when then-Reagan head coach Christina Nunez left for a position at Austin Anderson. Boss-Durante was tabbed as the head coach of the area’s most successful girls program over the past 25 seasons, with the added bonus of coaching her daughter.

“Growing up, she was always kind of tough on me,” Emi Durante said. “I would get jealous if she would be complimenting other girls and not me. I understood that she’s not always going to baby me. It’s very nice having my mom there for my last year of high school.”

terrence@terrencesports.com
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