Szabo: Ricker, beloved tennis coach and friend, will be missed

My first memories of the late Brian Ricker are from the 2006 Corona del Mar High girls’ tennis season.

He was in his third year as CdM’s head coach, and I was in my first year at the Daily Pilot.

And man, what a team I got to cover.

That 2006 squad demolished everything in its path on its way to a perfect 24-0 record and the CIF Southern Section Division 1 title.

I saw many of the players from that team Sunday evening at Corona del Mar State Beach, and how I desperately wish the occasion was different.

When I arrived to the informal memorial service for Ricker, I spoke briefly with twins Hayley and Miranda Young, and later Danielle Kaiden. All of them were wearing their CIF championship rings. Melissa Matsuoka and Hailey Hogan, who were freshmen on that team before themselves going on to sparkling careers for CdM, also were in attendance.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that 2006 team recently, and how patient Ricker was to a cub reporter like myself at the time. Little did either of us know that it would begin nearly a decade-long working relationship, a span that ended April 24 when Ricker tragically took his own life.

I don’t throw around that word, “tragically,” lightly. But, after Sunday’s beautiful service that had dozens of alumni among the approximately 100 people in attendance, it’s the only word that fits.

Ricker clearly touched a lot of lives in nearly two decades of coaching in Orange County, which included 11 years at CdM and this past school year at Costa Mesa High. One of the speakers was CdM graduate Matt Fisher, who played for Ricker and later coached with him.

“Brian did things his way, and sometimes that was a little quirky,” Fisher said. “Sometimes it involved dumping an ice cooler on a kid after practice, as if the poor, 14-year-old girl was a football coach who had just won the national championship.

“But his way was always that of integrity, fairness and putting his players first. I cannot imagine the demons Brian faced, but he showed up on those blue courts everyday without conceding a hint of pain.”

Deep inside, there was a lot of that. He had no children and didn’t talk to his family, which included four brothers and one sister. I didn’t realize until CdM Assistant Principal Daniel Patterson’s excellent piece published a couple of weeks ago that Ricker was homeless for the final year of his life.

That breaks my heart. I probably interviewed him close to 100 times over the years, and we usually didn’t talk about personal stuff. We kept it to sports, mostly, yet it wasn’t uncommon for the small talk with him to last well beyond when I had turned off my tape recorder.

He always wanted to be involved, always wanted to know how the other sports on campus were doing. We shared a love of basketball, and so we would talk about how UCLA could turn it around next year or the latest big game from Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors.

Ricker worked tirelessly to make sure CdM tennis was the best it could be, taking such pride in the program. He taught his players sportsmanship, yet managed to keep things fun, and that’s a fine line.

I believe he was consistently one of the best prep tennis coaches in Southern California, guiding the CdM girls to a 201-44 record and nine Division 1 semifinal appearances in his 11 years.

He also put together the Division 1 weekly rankings for several years, which was no easy task. In January 2015, Ricker was named the CIF Southern Section Girls’ Tennis Coach of the Year by the California Coaches’ Assn.

I hold in high regard many of the other local coaches against whom Ricker would match wits, trying to concoct the perfect singles and doubles lineup. Many of them were there Sunday, including Kristen Case of Newport Harbor High, A.G. Longoria of Sage Hill School and even “rival” John Kessler of University High, who in reality was close friends with Ricker as well.

“Coach Ricker’s winning formula was changing the DNA of his players to play as a team and to embrace doubles in a singles mentality sport,” Longoria told me.

True. He loved the team aspect. Egos had no place on the Sea Kings’ tennis courts. It was all about improving in tennis while having fun.

Ricker’s younger brother, Craig, picked up a picture of Brian as he spoke at the memorial. The picture was alongside traditional CdM team snacks like hippopotamus-shaped sugar cookies and red licorice.

Brian would have smiled at the arrangement. He was smiling in that picture.

“I’ve been overseas for the last 23 years … and I never saw him smile like that before I left,” Craig Ricker said. “In his childhood and college, he was never that happy. We see these pictures where he’s with the teams, and Brian was exactly where he was supposed to be, and where he wanted to be. It was his version of heaven.”

After the service I spoke with Brian’s older sister, Pat Mills, who echoed some of those same sentiments.

“When we caught up, he said to me, ‘I’m not married, and I’ve got no kids, except for the 90 kids I coach,’ ” Mills said. “That said it all to me. It was very clear that he was completely devoted to this, no question about it. The thing about it is that no matter what he did, he was devoted to it, 100%.”

That’s why I wasn’t surprised when I received a text message from Brian on the morning of April 23. I was on the road, covering the prestigious Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament. CdM senior Bjorn Hoffmann was playing in the semifinals, and Brian wanted an update.

Yes, he was no longer the CdM tennis coach, yet he remained invested.

We sent a few texts back and forth until I had good news. Hoffmann had beaten Billy Rowe of Coronado in three tough sets and had advanced to the championship match against Peninsula’s Connor Hance.

“Nice, that will be a great final!!” Brian texted me at 10:15 a.m.

Less than two days later, he was gone. Patterson and Kessler told me in the days following Brian’s death — authorities believe he committed suicide — that he considered me one of his closest friends, and I was a bit blown away by that. We never spent time together outside of our reporter-coach relationship, yet we both loved tennis and, to a large degree, high school athletics.

Brian invited me to his final CdM girls’ tennis banquet in late 2014. I was touched when he told the parents and athletes in attendance to give me a standing ovation, something I never believed I deserved just for doing my job.

I think Brian felt the same way about himself. In a way, Sunday’s memorial was our standing ovation for Brian, finally letting him know how much he meant. Unfortunately, it came after he was no longer with us.

On that morning in Ojai, I wish I would have continued our conversation. I wish I would have sent one more text back to Brian. The sentence would have been simple: “So, how are you doing?”

Would that have changed anything? He probably wouldn’t have wanted to talk about himself. Maybe he would have talked about CdM alumna Kenzie Purcifull, who plays tennis at UCLA. Or CdM senior Siena Sharf, who will play tennis at Loyola Marymount next year.

These are strong young women who Brian helped mold in numerous ways.

“He was the most patient coach you could possibly have,” Sharf said. “In eighth grade I was choosing between volleyball and tennis for what I was going to play in high school, and he told me what potential he saw in me. I didn’t see it in myself.”

Riley Gerdau, who was a four-year varsity player for CdM before graduating in 2015, was another one of these strong women who spoke at the memorial.

“I am so happy that I am part of such a small circle of people that will be forever linked to such an amazing and inspirational person,” Gerdau said, fighting back tears. “Brian impacted all of us in some way, and we all have our different funny memories of him and his strange self. So let’s all remember how amazing his life was, and not dwell on how it ended. Because no matter what, this world is a much better place because of Brian Ricker.”

Amen.