Buttle named Estancia boys’ tennis coach

Estancia High’s new boys’ tennis coach, Leland Buttle, will be a varsity head coach for the first time but that doesn’t mean he’s short on experience.

Buttle, a former Los Alamitos High standout, has been coaching lower levels and working closely with varsity coach Sam Sarria for boys’ and girls’ tennis at Huntington Beach High the past three years.

Buttle said he found out he would be the Eagles’ new coach just before the new year, but he was recently officially cleared.

At Huntington Beach, Buttle, 29, helped improve the girls’ program that started with about 20 players when he arrived, but grew to 50, he said. The Oilers had to add a frosh-soph team.

Before working at Huntington Beach, Buttle was an assistant at Chapman University for the men’s and women’s tennis teams for three years. Buttle competed for Chapman.

He won a Sunset League doubles title at Los Alamitos, where he was a four-year varsity letter-winner. After playing for the Griffins, he went to Azusa Pacific before transferring to Chapman, where he played No. 2 and No. 3 singles and No. 1 doubles.

While he worked at Huntington Beach, Buttle also coached at several tennis clinics, mostly in the city of Huntington Beach.

Buttle takes over for Jay Gardner at Estancia.