High School Illustrated High School Sports Magazine
Santa Margarita Catholic High School is proud to welcome the new girls’ varsity Lacrosse Head Coach, Bob Mezeul. Coach Mezeul grew up playing lacrosse in Long Island, NY before moving out west. Since moving to California in 1980, he has been active in Northern California lacrosse when he began 5 years of post-collegiate competitive men’s league play as a goalkeeper for Palo Alto Miller Lacrosse. In 1982, Mezeul co-founded the San Jose Junior Lacrosse Club which was the 7th high school lacrosse program in Northern California at that time. Mezeul acted as Head Coach for SJJL from 1982-1986 before accepting the Head Coach position at San Jose State University where he coached from 1988 –1990 and led the SJSU team to a West Coast playoff berth in 1990. Having been blessed with three daughters, Mezeul transitioned to women’s lacrosse in the mid 1990’s and helped establish the junior-league girls division as a coach for Pleasanton Lacrosse Club.
Mezeul has also spent the last 7 years at Amador Valley High School as an assistant coach and goalkeeper coach for the girls Varsity Lacrosse team where he helped lead the team to the NCS playoffs in each year, three consecutive years in the finals and an NCS Championship victory in 2008. In 2005, Mezeul founded Livermore Phantom Lacrosse Club, a 501 (3) c Public Non-Profit where he helped build boys and girl’s junior lacrosse.
In addition to his hopes for the team this season, Mezeul has goals for the girls lacrosse program that stretch beyond the playing field.
“I look forward to sharing specific details but in short, I believe success is measured in many ways, not solely game wins. Our approach must be to develop the program in a manner that raises our lacrosse competitiveness while keeping players centered on academic success and enhancing their spiritual well-being.” Mezeul said. “In my efforts to build winning teams, I have observed that the strongest teams all shared some common characteristics. Apart from obvious lacrosse fundamentals and conditioning, successful teams have all had strong parent support systems, a culture that embraces the pursuit of excellence, players with discipline, field maturity, and sound decision making skills; and most importantly, a team where players had a genuine, unyielding commitment to see each other succeed. Our plan will focus on strengthening each of these components at SMCHS in our effort to elevate our program standing and enrich the experience for all players.”
The SMCHS community is excited about having Coach Mezeul lead our girls’ team into the 2014 season.
