Pastorini, Taft Girls’ Tennis Team Satisfy Debt With City Title

Some would call it pay-back. That, however, would be the layman’s term.

Marvin Jones teaches business courses in the mornings at Taft High. In the afternoon, he coaches tennis.

In the classroom, Jones uses terms such as “outstanding debt.” In the afternoon, Taft’s tennis debits were anything but outstanding.

Heading into last week’s City Section team tennis championships, the Taft girls’ team had lost to archrival Palisades five times in the final, including the past four years. This is not considered spreading the wealth.

Talk about deficits. Call the coach Starvin’ Marvin. Stamp the bill overdue, the debt delinquent. And consider Taft’s Brahna Pastorini, a reformed tennis delinquent of sorts, the bill collector.

Pastorini won her No. 1 singles match and finished the season with a personal mark of 16-0 in leading top-seeded Taft to the long-sought victory over the Dolphins.

Pastorini also is the top-seeded player in the City individual singles tournament, which began Monday. Pastorini, a 5-foot-10 junior, rolled to a 6-0, 6-0 victory in the first round and barely broke a sweat.

“It went OK,” said Pastorini, who noted her opponent was gracious in defeat and “didn’t have an attitude.”

Pastorini admits there have been times when her own behavior has been less than proper. As recently as a few years ago, Pastorini’s rackets spent as much time in the air as they did in her hand.

“I threw it once in a tournament and almost hit a girl,” she recalled. “That was stupid.”

Not to mention expensive.

“I was breaking rackets left and right,” said Pastorini, 16, who is unbeaten in her two seasons at Taft. “At $300 apiece, my mom was really on my case.”

But kids will be kids, and they often must learn lessons on their own. Last fall, while playing for Taft, Pastorini was en route to another easy victory over another hopelessly outclassed opponent.

“It gets boring,” she said. “Some of them can’t get it over the net.”

So Pastorini pulled a mini-McEnroe. It wasn’t a tantrum, per se, just sort of a bratty thing to do. Pastorini played left-handed, which would be nothing new for a lefty such as McEnroe. Pastorini, however, is right-handed.

“It wasn’t a very mature thing to do,” she said. “I stopped. It was rude. I wouldn’t want somebody doing that to me.”

There is a simple explanation for Pastorini’s past behavior: She is driven, and for more than the typical reasons.

She is the daughter of former NFL quarterback Dan Pastorini and has set about proving to her father that women can compete too.

“My mom told me that he wanted a guy, somebody who could play football,” said Brahna, an only child whose parents are divorced. “He never accepted that I was a girl because girls aren’t athletes.”

Her relationship with her father isn’t close, though she is frequently asked about him. After all, he played for the Rams and Raiders. She does not relish the subject.

“One week, I’ll talk to him every day, then I won’t hear from him for six months,” she said. “We’re not very close at all.”

She said she spent last Christmas with her father, who has remarried and lives in Colorado, then didn’t speak with him again until this week, when she accidentally hit the wrong automatic-dial key on her telephone key pad.

“I’m doing all this (athletics), basically, for my mom,” she said.

Pastorini’s mother is a celebrity as well, actress-model June Wilkinson, a former Playboy pin-up girl. Her mother, conversely, attends many of Brahna’s matches and once postponed her appearance at a filming session to watch her daughter play.

“She makes time for me,” Pastorini said. “She pays for my lessons and supports me. She thinks I can become a pro.”

Pastorini seems bent on reaching that objective. Even her mother was surprised to learn how Brahna had spent one recent afternoon: four hours of tennis, an eight-mile bicycle ride, jog for a mile, then jump rope.

“Tennis is her life,” Jones said. “She takes it very, very seriously.”

Pastorini is considered one of the top players in the state in the 16-and-under age group. Last month she knocked off a highly ranked player in a weekend tournament and as a reward her mother agreed to allow her to apply for a motorcycle driver’s license.

“It was a bribe,” Brahna said. “It worked.”

Of course, if bribes had worked in all instances, Jones might have tried some on his players over the past few seasons.

Taft exorcised more than a few demons with Friday’s victory over Palisades. Last spring, Jones’ boys’ team was seeded first in the team final and had defeated Palisades in the semifinals. Unfortunately for Taft, a player had not attended the requisite number of classes on the day of the match, and the match was forfeited to Palisades.

The Taft girls’ team lost to Palisades in 1984, and from 1988-91.

“Finally,” Jones said Monday. “I’m still excited. I haven’t been able to wipe the smile from my face.”

Pastorini knew the stakes. Jones wanted the trophy so much, it was surprising he didn’t ask for a receipt.

Finally, the Pali tally no longer was a shutout, and Pastorini helped square the account with her victory in No. 1 singles.

“Every once in a while, he tells us all the story about how bad he wants to beat Palisades,” she said. “We all knew what it meant.”