Gil Corona showed up at Arizona State Teacher's College (now Northern Arizona University) in Flagstaff in 1940. Coach joined the Army Air Corps in 1942 at the beginning of WW II for the USA. He was a Tech Sergeant and radioman on a B-26 bomber. He was shot down on his 25th mission near Rome and the Tiber River in June of 1943. He spent the next 2 years in German prison camps until he was liberated by General George S. Patton in the spring of 1945. He returned to Flagstaff to finish his education. He played football and baseball for ASC and then took his first coaching job in Seligman, coaching football, basketball, baseball, and boxing from 1947 to 1953. Gil moved up the mountain to Flagstaff in 1953 and stayed there until 1984 coaching baseball and football all those years. In 1968 he was the dedicatee of the All-Star baseball game. Coach finished his baseball career with an overall record of 185-70-2. Gil spent his retirement umpiring for the AIA. Gil was a familiar figure at many baseball games in the Flagstaff area for years. Coach Corona served on the Executive Board of the Arizona Coaches Association and once served as the president. The baseball complex bears Coach Corona's name with a beautiful plaque behind home plate and his name on the scoreboard. Coach Corona was inducted in the Arizona High School Athletic Coaches Hall of Fame in 1987.