Xanthos Gives Pierce a Blast From the Past

Paul Xanthos figured he’d be spending most of his time on the golf course this year.

He should have known better.

Even in retirement, Xanthos hasn’t been able to stay away from his first love, tennis. He was persuaded to return as coach of the Pierce College men’s team last month, after previous coach Aris Hovsepian became ill and left unexpectedly.

It is familiar territory for Xanthos, 77, who coached Pierce to 23 conference championships in 29 seasons before retiring in 1993 with a 550-94 record.

But this time will be different, he says.

“I’m having more fun now because I’m more relaxed,” he said Thursday while watching the Brahmas defeat Hancock, 8-1, in a Western State Conference match at Pierce.

“I don’t have the pressure I had on me before. I don’t have much to prove anymore.”

Emphasizing his point, the silver-haired Xanthos encouraged his players during breaks, telling them to relax and enjoy themselves. The formula seems to be working.

Despite losing most of the players from last season’s conference championship team, Pierce (2-1, 2-0 in WSC play) again figures to be a WSC contender.

“I tell the players we’re going to do the best we can,” Xanthos said. “Hopefully by the end of the season, we’ll have more wins than losses.”

That’s normally the case with a Xanthos-coached team. In addition to his remarkable record at Pierce, where his teams had conference winning streaks of 96, 50, 37 and 27 matches, Xanthos won 25 league titles in 17 years of coaching tennis, basketball and cross-country at North Hollywood High.

“He’s a legend,” said Joey Schimmel, Pierce’s No. 1 singles player. “The older he gets, the more he knows. With that much knowledge, everybody listens to what he has to say.”

The emergence of Schimmel, a freshman from Westlake High, and No. 2 player Milos Budisavljevic, a 6-foot-5 left-hander from Croatia who recently moved to the U.S., has helped ease the transition of replacing virtually the entire team.

Xanthos, whose late start prevented him from properly conditioning his players, is still waiting for equipment and uniforms on order, a frustrating situation for a coach who always prided himself on meticulous preparation.

“It’s been a strange situation for me,” Xanthos said. “I thought I was going to be out playing golf. But when I found out Pierce might not have a tennis team because they didn’t have a coach, I said I would help out.

“I couldn’t just stand back and watch one of the best programs in the state fall by the wayside. That would have been ridiculous.”