Setting Sailors’ course

Barry Faulkner

When Fletcher Olson chose teaching as a second career, she likely had

no inkling it would lead to enough job titles to necessitate

five-by-seven business cards.

In addition to being Newport Harbor High’s girls athletic

director, as well as its girls tennis coach, Olson is, in no

particular order, the director of the school’s Franklin

(communications) Academy, the school’s business department chair, and

a multimedia design and communications technology teacher.

In her spare time, this mother of three is an advisory chairman

for the Newport Harbor Yacht Club junior sailing program.

“Multi-tasking,” said Olson, when asked how she makes it through

the average day.

There is nothing average about her contribution to Sailor

athletics. Next fall will be her 16th season as a tennis coach at the

school, her eighth as girls head coach. During her tenure at the

helm, the program has been to four CIF Southern Section title matches

and was the first team to defeat vaunted Peninsula (Olson’s first

year as head coach in 1996, ending a 120-match winning streak).

Since taking over as girls athletic director, she has lessened the

load on former boys and girls AD Eric Tweit. Rather than separate

duties between boys and girls programs, the two use a crossover

approach, allowing each to utilize his or her strengths to better

serve Sailor athletes and coaches.

“My role is more on the side of getting the word out about

academic athletic student awards, implementing the Victory with Honor

program, and working with our Athletic Council.

Olson’s focus on academics includes working with coaches to

monitor the classroom work of Sailor student-athletes.

“An area I’ve pushed since I became AD was to create a strong

awareness for the need to have a strong GPA,” Olson said. “There are

programs in place to recognize varsity team GPA. Of the 16 teams here

for which we submitted team GPAs, five were in the top five in the

state and girls volleyball was the top team in the state for schools

with at least a 1,500 enrollment. The other 11 all earned honorable

mention.”

Olson said coaches complete reports to track students’ academic

progress, which allows both coaches and Olson to monitor

student-athletes and avoid potential eligibility issues.

The Athletic Council, initiated for the 2002-03 school year,

consists of an athlete from each of the sports, who are encouraged to

bring issues and concerns up for discussion with Olson, Tweit and an

assistant principal, all of whom oversee the body.

Olson believes the council, an idea gleaned by Tweit from an

athletic directors meeting back East, fits well with the Victory with

Honor program, initiated by the CIF Southern Section to help improve

sportsmanship.

Parent boosters are also invited to attend council meetings.

Olson said maintenance of facilities, particularly during the

effort just underway to rebuild the school’s main academic buildings,

prompting the introduction of several temporary classrooms that have

eliminated already sparse field space, is a pressing concern.

“We lost two fields [to the temporary classrooms], the junior

varsity baseball and the junior varsity softball field and,

hopefully, the way things have been set up, we won’t lose the

football practice field,” Olson said.

Olson said she is cautiously optimistic the Newport-Mesa Unified

School District will continue to help fund necessary repairs to

existing facilities, while construction, funded by a recent bond

measure, consumes the campus.

“The maintenance and safety issues are huge,” Olson said. “Our

biggest concerns are our necessities, including our locker rooms.

Hopefully, those areas won’t fall through the cracks.”

Olson is encouraged by the creation of a liaison in the district

office, Mike Murphy, to hear concerns about facility maintenance.

Olson also works with Tweit and the Newport Harbor administration

to maintain a high level of coaching in all programs.

“Ideally, we like to hire teachers with an athletic background who

are interested in coaching,” Olson said. “We get a great deal of

support from our principal [Michael Vossen] there.”

Olson’s athletic background centers around sailing, which she

embraced growing up in Corona del Mar. A CdM High graduate (Class of

1969), she was the only women on her Orange Coast College sailing

team and eventually became coordinator of the sailing program for the

City of Newport Beach, a position she held for 25 years.

She always knew she’d eventually become a teacher, however, and

obtained her teaching credential in the mid-1990s.

“It’s everything I thought it would be,” Olson said of her

experience in education.

She became AD after former principal Bonnie Maspero suggested a

second AD be appointed to ease the workload of Tweit, who had

overseen both programs for years.

“They asked if I’d be interested and I’ve always had a strong

interest in athletics,” Olson said.

Olson has helped protect the best interests of Sailor girls

athletics. Of the 10 girls varsity programs with coaches in place,

six are led by coaches who teach at Newport Harbor. Among those are

veteran mentors Bill Barnett (a former U.S. national men’s team coach

who has spent more than 30 years in the water polo program), Dan

Glenn (17 years at the volleyball helm), and Tweit, who has led the

cross country and track and field squads for more than a decade.

Volleyball has been the flagship program in terms of success. The

Tars have won seven CIF Southern Section championships, at least one

in the last four decades, and have added four CIF State titles, all

in the 1990s.

Cross country has secured three section and three state

championships to account for nearly all the school’s remaining CIF

crowns.

Water polo won a CIF section title in 1999 and track and field

managed the same feat in ’93.

The aforementioned success in tennis has been a constant, while

basketball, soccer, swimming and field hockey have also ridden

periodic cycles of talent to great heights.