Nolan Portillo, a 2003 Bakersfield College graduate, is scheduled to fight his seventh professional fight on Feb. 28 in Southern California. Portillo manages himself and travels to all of his bouts, but his greatest struggle was living on the streets while he enrolled at BC.

For most of his freshman year at BC, Portillo was homeless until his financial aid came in.

He even had the misfortune of catching the flu while staying at the park across from campus off Mount Vernon Avenue.

With all of these obstacles, Portillo struggled with his desire to prove himself.

He graduated Phi Theta Kappa and magna cum laude with honors with a 3.83 GPA and is now at Cal State Bakersfield majoring in Communication with a 3.72 GPA.

Growing up on the east side of Bakersfield, Portillo felt he had a sheltered life and is grateful to his mother and stepfather Richard Pacheco.

He was an above-average student and not necessarily a candidate to end up on the streets.

“When I finally got out there, I was making up for lost time,” Portillo said. “I think I overdid it.”

Graduating midterm out of high school then dealing with a long-distance relationship and getting into the wrong crowd eventually led Portillo to living on the streets.

It was a slow process that led from living with friends and at the Bakersfield Rescue Mission.

Portillo, who began boxing in high school, recalled that before he attended BC, he even started to not take boxing seriously.

He once beat a guy who was 7-0 in Fresno. Portillo offered the fighter a rematch, and they fought a week later.

However, with his girlfriend away at college, Portillo didn’t put enough effort into training for the fight. “I spent the whole week with her. I did not train, I literally ran one block, you know! I was over confident! I had hickies all over my neck and everything. I got my ass kicked, he kicked my ass, he kicked my ass.”

Portillo’s grandfather was a professional boxer and had boxed in the 1930s at Madison Square Garden in New York.

But Portillo got into boxing by watching fights with his stepfather. They would watch Mike Tyson fight and hope he got knocked out.

From there, it was a pair of cheap gloves bought at the swap meet progressing to boxing in class when the teacher would step out and at football practice.

High school football teammate Brandon Gonzalez introduced Portillo to his father, Mike Gonzalez, who ran the South West Boxing Club, later known as the TKO Club.

The club eventually went to the Martin Luther King Center and is know settled at the PAL center on Fourth Street off Union Ave.

At one point, Portillo finally listened to his birth father, Victor Portillo, who had a good relationship with his son, and registered for college. From there, Portillo did what he could to maintain his grades.

Through all of this, Portillo remembers all those who helped from his parents to his birth father to even those at the Bakersfield Rescue Mission.

His first job as a freshman was as a custodial assistant where Bakersfield College custodian Edison Cruz was not only Portillo’s boss but also a mentor.

Anna Allen, a sociology teacher, was also another mentor for Portillo. She guided him day by day and encouraged him until he finally graduated with honors in 2003.

While looking forward to his next fight in southern California and reflecting on everything, Portillo said, “I think I had the big man watching over me. I do not know how I did not get into trouble.”