Youth Is Served in Coaching Ranks

Ian Lee looks so young that the dean of students at Van Nuys Grant ordered him to halt during a tardy sweep in the school hallway.

“Come with me,” the dean said.

“Wait, I’m a coach,” Lee pleaded.

Ryan Purugganan looks so young that teachers at Woodland Hills El Camino Real challenge his parking privileges in the faculty parking lot.

“They say I can’t park there,” he said. “I tell them, ‘I work here. I have a parking pass.’ I show them my coaching ID. They get pretty embarrassed.”

Such is life for the two boy wonders of City Section coaching, Lee, 19, and Purugganan, 20. They’re the head girls’ volleyball coaches at their schools.

Both are full-time students at Cal State Northridge and convinced school administrators that they had the maturity, confidence and wisdom to direct varsity programs while still in their teens.

“Age wasn’t a concern,” El Camino Real assistant principal Dave Fehte said of Purugganan. “It was his ability to get the job done.”

Purugganan started coaching junior varsity girls’ volleyball as an unpaid assistant when he was a junior at El Camino Real. Former coach Aimee Sturges trained and supervised him, then “begged and pleaded” for the school to hire him as her replacement when she retired to raise her son.

“He’s maintained the foundation of the program,” Sturges said.

This season, Purugganan was promoted to varsity coach, receiving a coaching salary of $2,133 that goes toward paying for his college education. He’s hoping to become a physical education teacher.

Last season, at 18, Lee was the youngest varsity coach in the City Section. He was hired only days before practice began and guided the Lancers to a 16-4 record.

“I think they were pretty desperate for a coach,” he said. “When I walked in, I think they were shocked. They never really asked how old I was.”

Lee played volleyball at Woodland Hills Taft and received a strong coaching education from coaches Doug Magorien and Arman Mercado.

Each young coach had to satisfy concerns of administrators and parents as to whether, as young males, they could work effectively with young females.

“They have their own life and I have my own,” Purugganan said of his players.

Added Lee: “The biggest thing the school was worried about is could this guy handle a bunch of girls his age. I told them, ‘I’m here to coach.’ ”

Lee went so far as not to tell the girls his first name, making sure they addressed him as “Coach Lee.”

Under City Section guidelines, each school must have a credentialed teacher at practice and matches, but Lee and Purugganan are the ones in charge. They passed their first-aid classes and had fingerprints taken so the district could do background checks.

Players had to be convinced that someone so young could earn their respect.

“At first, I was very uneasy and wasn’t sure how much this person could know more than me,” El Camino Real senior Vanessa Grijalva said. “But he has wisdom beyond his years.”

Parents can be somewhat confused when they seek to meet their daughters’ coach for the first time.

“I’ve had parents come up, ‘Hey, do you know where Coach Purugganan is?’ I’d tell them, ‘You’re speaking to him,’ ” Purugganan said.

Lee is majoring in business at Northridge but wants to pursue coaching, even if he doesn’t become a teacher.

“I have the coach’s dream to win the City championship,” he said.

Lee and Purugganan have known each other since their playing days at Taft and El Camino Real.

“I made it my job if he hit the ball, I was going to get it,” Lee said.

They’ve become friends and coaching buddies, each trying to prove that youth is no obstacle to coaching success when someone possesses knowledge and a strong character.

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Eric Sondheimer can be reached at eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.