Jets set to take off on the court in 2015
New men’s volleyball program making its way to San Diego Miramar College
November 18, 2014
It was announced on Oct. 10 that the athletics program at San Diego Miramar College was given approval to establish a men’s volleyball program to compete in the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference beginning in the spring of 2015.
“I am thrilled that Miramar is starting a men’s volleyball team. There are only 13 men’s CCCAA men’s volleyball teams in the state of California and seeing Miramar add men’s volleyball is fantastic news,” said City College women’s and men’s volleyball head coach Kevin Pratte.
The men’s volleyball program was approved by the San Diego Community College District Board of Trustees on Oct. 9. According to the news release by Miramar College, having a men’s volleyball team as a competitive sport will be an opportunity to increase diverse student involvement and enrollment on campus and will also contribute toward meeting Title IX requirements — the equity of male and female student-athletes.
It was also announced by the athletics program that they hired former San Diego Mesa College men’s volleyball head coach and Francis Parker High School head coach John Landicho. He will be directing and creating the program and will also be an assistant professor in the Department of Exercise Science, Health and Nutrition at Miramar.
Landicho expressed that the biggest challenge on creating a program from the ground up will be getting players to join.
“With the program’s late approval from the district in October, we didn’t have the traditional recruiting period, winter and spring available to us, and CCCAA rules limit our recruiting ability further,” Landicho said. “Fortunately, we’ve gotten some talented players just through word of mouth. We won’t have a big program in terms of numbers; I usually carry 20 in the program, and we won’t be that big but we’ll work real hard on the things we can control, and the success and winning will take care of itself.”
“Coach John Landicho is a proven winner and I predict that he will run a high level program at Miramar. It is going to be a privilege coaching against Coach Landicho and I am happy to welcome them into our conference,” Pratte said.
