Hall of Fame
Misak Pirinjian was born of Armenian ancestry in Jaffa, Israel on October 29, 1953. His family moved to Marin County in 1969 when he was a teenager, and he attended San Rafael High School. Pirinjian’s father Vartan bought Tony’s Shoe Repair in 1970, and Misak helped his father in the shop. He played soccer as a student at the College of Marin from 1973-1974, and earned MVP and All-American both years. He played soccer with the Dons at USF and was a member of the 1975 team that won both the NCAA National Championship and the West Coast Intercollegiate Soccer Conference Championship. He graduated in 1977 with a degree in Political Science and went on to earn a Law degree at the Western State University in Fullerton, CA.Â
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"I was a law clerk in an office with four walls, books, and no one else, and I thought, 'This is not for me,' " Pirinjian recalled. "I called my dad and said, 'I want to take over the shop.' " His dad agreed, and in 1985, Pirinjian became the sole operator of Tony's Shoe Repair. "The hardest thing about my job is when customers come in and I'm not finished," said Pirinjian, noting that he's "just one person with a lot of shoes." He contemplates the best part of his job. "All of the customers who come in and make your day," he said. "My motto is to do a good job at a reasonable price. I don't have time to be negative. I always want to be positive (SF Gate)." Pirinjian was inducted into the USF Hall of Fame in 2001, and was honored in 2013, when a film about him, made by his friend and filmmaker David Marks, premiered at the 36th Mill Valley Film Festival.Â
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