Boys’ & Girls’ Tennis: Ricker hired at Costa Mesa
Former Corona del Mar High tennis coach Brian Ricker has been hired as the boys’ and girls’ tennis coach at Costa Mesa High, the school announced Monday.
“I’m very excited about it,” Ricker said. “The rumor around the street is that Costa Mesa High School is on the upswing enthusiastically, on academics, arts and sports. I’m happy to join that bandwagon. Hopefully, I can help tennis jump on that bandwagon.”
Ricker resigned as CdM girls’ coach in January after 11 years at the helm. He was 201-44 overall with the girls’ program, including six Pacific Coast League titles and the 2006 CIF Southern Section Division 1 title, and also coached the CdM boys for four years. Previously, he coached at Laguna Beach High.
Ricker said when he resigned at CdM that he wanted to move back to the Chicago area to coach and also prepare for retirement, but those plans obviously changed.
“There were two main issues,” Ricker said. “I missed the kids too much, that daily routine of being able to come out and be with the kids, which is really the best part about being a high school coach, getting to deal with the positive energy of the kids. The other issue that I guess I should have thought through more is that tennis is not year-round there. The seasons are much shorter, they’re more spread out … I always wanted to coach, but I didn’t want to coach just for two months.”
The opposite is true for Ricker. He said he wants to implement a year-round program and summer camps at Costa Mesa, as well as help start a middle school program.
Costa Mesa as a tennis program has struggled with declining numbers and coaching turnover over the past several years. This spring, the Mustangs don’t have a boys’ tennis team. Costa Mesa Athletic Director Sharon Uhl said there were only two boys who wanted to play, Stephen Vu and Conner Nguyen. Both of them instead ended up on the successful boys’ volleyball team, which is headed to the postseason for the first time in six years.
Costa Mesa girls’ team was coached by Benny Quinonez last fall.
“The stars were aligned,” Uhl said of hiring Ricker. “We were looking for a tennis coach and he happened to email in, ‘Are you looking for a tennis coach?’ … it was like a god-send. I think we need him as much as he needs us. I told him, ‘You might be starting from scratch,’ and he seemed excited about that.
“We needed someone who was a motivator. I’m completely excited about having him on-board.”
Ricker said he will run the Mustangs program similarly to the way he has run the Laguna Beach and CdM programs, focusing on conduct and sportsmanship as well as technique.
“If we can accomplish all that and have some fun while we’re doing it, then I think the wins and losses will take care of themselves, just like they did [at CdM] and at Laguna Beach,” he said.
