
2019 FOOTBALL INDUCTEE
MATT
GIORDANO

Matt Giordano is a football player. And he’s been fortunate to not only play at the highest level, he’s been successful at the highest level.
Matt Giordano is a Super Bowl champion, though he will be quick to tell you that is not necessarily the highlight of his career.
Giordano’s path to the NFL began in Fresno. He graduated from Buchanan High School in 2001, roughly six months after helping the Bears win their only valley championship in 2000. Giordano was a two-way player on that team, wide receiver and defensive back, and he says he and his friends still talk about that accomplishment today.
After high school, Matt Giordano enrolled at Fresno City College where he played for two years, 2001-2002. It was with the Rams when Giordano stopped playing on offense to focus solely on defense.
That turned out to be a very smart decision.
As a strong safety, Giordano was all-state his freshman season at FCC. He recorded 62 tackles, recovered four fumbles and intercepted one pass.
A few years later, at Cal, he was first team all-Pac-10, as well as an honorable mention all- American, after recording 61 tackles his senior season.
Matt Giordano played for the Golden Bears from 2003-2004, and he was coached by none other than Jeff Tedford. Giordano enjoyed playing for Tedford, referring to him as “very honest, very real.”
In 2005, Matt Giordano was drafted into the NFL. The Indianapolis Colts picked him in the fourth round, 135th overall. He played in 15 games during his rookie season. In his second season, 2006, he recorded his first career interception in a game against Jacksonville. (He still has the football.) And the Colts would finish that season as Super Bowl XLI champions.
“It was surreal playing in the NFL,” said Giordano, who recorded 220 tackles and eleven interceptions in 116 games over nine seasons with the Colts, Packers, Saints, Raiders and Rams.
A few years after his playing career ended, Matt Giordano’s coaching career began. In 2016, he took over as the head football coach at his alma mater, Buchanan High School.