TOM PESTOLESI

Richard Dunn

During demonstration speeches, Tom Pestolesi isn’t afraid to make his

points. In fact, he thrives on showing his volleyball players how

it’s done.

Pestolesi, the Irvine Valley College men’s volleyball coach and

national champion on the masters level who still owns a reputation on

the beach for his savvy and quick jumping ability as a middle

blocker, said he has “the best job in the world,” but if playing

volleyball could pay his bills and feed his wife and three children,

he’d just do it.

“I love coaching and I love teaching. I have a passion for both,”

Pestolesi said. “But, to me, nothing’s better than playing ... I

still have a passion to play, but my body, at 43, is deteriorating.

But I still love to play and I think it helps me coaching-wise. I

understand what players go through and the slumps and the lost

confidence ... coaching helps my playing and playing helps my

coaching.”

A big kid at heart who sometimes likes to “act like a kid,”

Pestolesi is typically upbeat, positive and smiling.

“I’m a glass is half-full guy. I always look for a silver lining,”

said Pestolesi, who spent several years coaching in the Newport-Mesa

District, including 10 years at Estancia as the boys and girls

volleyball coach.

“I tell (students) in my classes and on my teams that when things

aren’t going well, that’s when my true character’s going to come out

and your true character’s going to come out. That’s when you find out

about people.”

Pestolesi, the latest honoree in the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of

Fame, grew up playing every sport imaginably in Huntington Beach with

a group of close friends, including longtime Newport Harbor boys and

girls volleyball coach Dan Glenn. Volleyball was big in that part of

the world in the 1970s and the 6-foot-2 Pestolesi found his calling

as a middle blocker for Huntington Beach High (Class of ‘78).

After playing two years at Long Beach State, Pestolesi (a.k.a.

Pesto) transferred to the University of Hawaii and played on

scholarship, thanks to Charlie Brande’s phone call to former Hawaii

coach Dave Shoji. Pestolesi became a star, twice earning

all-conference honors while being named an NCAA All-American in 1983.

Without wasting much time, Pestolesi, proud of having graduated

from college, started coaching. His first stop came in the fall of

1983, when he coached the Corona del Mar High girls volleyball team.

“You’re thinking you know it all, but really you don’t know

anything,” said Pestolesi, who arrived at Estancia in the spring of

‘84, leading the Eagles’ boys to the CIF Southern Section 4-A

championship match, in which they lost to Coach Mike Cook’s Mira

Costa Mustangs in five games.

With former Estancia head coach Mike Pomeroy around to help his

successor, Pestolesi, things ran smoothly off the court, while

players like Johnny Wallace, Adam Lockwood and Steve Conti took care

of business on the floor and “made me a really good coach,” Pestolesi

quipped.

Pestolesi remained at Estancia through the Matt Fuerbringer years

until 1993. For a couple of years, there was a crossover with

coaching the Estancia boys and the Irvine Valley men, whom Pestolesi

coached as a part-timer from 1991 through ‘94, before getting hired

in 1998 as a full-time staffer and volleyball coach at the college.

As Tim Parsel was leaving Newport Harbor and headed for Estancia

to become the head boys basketball coach and later the school’s

athletic director, Pestolesi figured it was time for a change. He and

Parsel taught the same classes, so a switch was natural. And

Pestolesi, with young kids at home, was interested in coaching with

his longtime friend, Glenn, at Newport Harbor.

“I was (Glenn’s) assistant coach ... it was perfect,” said

Pestolesi, who helped the Sailors win national, state and CIF

Division I girls volleyball titles in 1994, as well as coach Newport

Harbor’s varsity badminton team for two years.

Pestolesi’s badminton teams would practice at 6 a.m. so there

would be no scheduling conflicts with Glenn’s volleyball team.

Then, in ‘98, the Irvine Valley job opened. He was tipped off by

former college Tim O’Brien, now the boys basketball coach at

Northwood High. Pestolesi was happy at Newport Harbor, but friends

encouraged him to apply for the IVC position and the pay would

definitely be an increase. Pestolesi’s wife, Diane, grilled him with

questions and he bought a new suit, so he could dress to impress at

the interview. Shortly thereafter, the call came to ask Pestolesi to

coach the Irvine Valley men as a full-timer and he couldn’t say yes

quick enough.

“It doesn’t seem like 20 years (of coaching). I’ve done a lot of

different things,” Pestolesi said.