Orange star follows namesake's lead
Orange is developing a monopoly on good tennis players named Stevie.
There was Stevie Johnson at few years ago with Orange's Panthers. He was a dominating player then, and is a dominating one now at USC where he is the top-ranked collegiate player in the nation.
Meet the next Orange Stevie – Stevie Phifer. He is 27-0 in Golden West League play, and 47-1 overall as a senior singles player for the Panthers.
Johnson was playing tournaments as a child. Phifer picked up the game his freshman year.
"I was a basketball player," Phifer said. "I thought I'd be a professional basketball player some day."
Then one day his stepfather took 15-year old Stevie Phifer to the courts, gave a brief lesson on tennis fundamentals, and Phifer quickly fell in love with this new game.
"I started playing extreme amounts of tennis, six or seven hours a day," Phifers said. "Then I saved up my money to buy a ball machine."
What does Phifer lilke about tennis?
"What's not to like about tennis?" he replied. "I like competing, I like hitting a winning shot. Hitting a winning shot, that's just the best feeling in the world."
Phifer can crank his serve up to 120 mph, and that serve and his forehand stroke are his strengths. He needs to refine his volleys and backhand.
Not long ago, Phifer also needed to work on his scholastics – a lot of work. He was a miserable student as a freshman, and improved some but not enough as a sophomore. Orange coach Peter Tavoularis led the team of motivators that worked on Phifer, who has become an excellent student.
"Since Stevie set foot on campus for his junior year," Tavoularis said, "it's been all As except for one or two Bs. It was like he was saying, 'I always knew I could do it, I just figured I would do it now.'"
Phifer wants to attend Arizona and play tennis there, but he first will spend a pair of years at Arizona's Pima Community College to continue building his academic resume.
"Stevie can play at the college level," said Tavoularis, who also coached Johnson at Orange. "There is no doubt he could be getting a lot of NAIA or NCAA Division 2 offers if he wanted them, but he's adamant about playing at the highest level."
A more immediate goal is success in the Golden West League finals, which begin Monday. Phifer lost in the league finals last year, to teammate Ricky Lee. It was an upset loss that still upsets Phifer in a small way but inspires him in a larger way.
"I definitely want to win league, then make a big splash in CIF," said Phifer, who is not playing in the Ojai Tournament this week so he can focus on the CIF-Southern Section individual playoffs that begin May 20.
We see from a story on Stevie Johnson at ocregister.com now and in the printed sports section Thursday, that Stevie Johnson now goes by Steve Johnson. But in Orange Panthers tennis, he will always be remembered as Stevie, and now he is not their only Stevie.
Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:
•Servite athletic director and wrestling coach Alan Clinton said he is considering applying for the CIF-Southern Section assistant commissioner position that will be vacated when Rob Wigod assumes duties as CIF-SS commissioner this summer when the retirement of Jim Staunton from the post becomes effective. The job has not yet been posted. Clinton, widely respected in athletics statewide, has a string of awards including California state athletic director of the year and Orange County wrestling coach of the year for the 2010-11 season.
•It's a shame that Cal State Fullerton's Goodwin Field is the only suitable north-county location for a big baseball event like the Hard9 National Classic that had a few games, including its semifinals and its championship game, there last week. The place charges $8 to park, and parking vouchers last week were only available via the clumsy kiosks at which people waited up to 15 minutes in line for the vouchers. It seems that if a place is going to charge $8, there might be enough income from that to pay one or two people to serve as parking lot attendants.
•High school lacrosse championship semifinals will be played May 7 at San Clemente High. According to the latest rankings at laxpower.com, St. Margaret's is the top-ranked boys team among CIF-SS member schools, with Foothill at No. 2, El Toro at No. 3 and San Clemente at No. 4. For girls lacrosse, the top four are, in order, Los Alamitos, Foothill, Beckman and Santa Margarita.
•The leagues of the Coast View Conference, the grouping of 10 south county schools that are placed in either the Sea View or the South Coast leagues based upon the historical strength of the schools in a given sport, will have the same memberships for the 2011-12 school year, the second year of the conference's existence. Teams will be evaluated at the end of 2011-12, with the potential for different league memberships for the following two school years. San Juan Hills principal Tom Ressler said there was some discussion of going with a six-team and a four-team league for football, but Coast View school leaders decided to stick with five teams per league for all sports.
