Luppani’s return strictly business

Flo Luppani featureFormer Orange Coast point guard will guide Santa Ana College’s Dons against Pirates tonight in crucial conference clash.By the time Flo Luppani arrived at Orange Coast College as a women’s basketball recruit out of Woodbridge High, her career path was already clear. Tonight, that path leads her back to OCC, where she will coach the Santa Ana College women’s basketball team against the Pirates and her old coach, Mike Thornton.

The Orange Empire Conference game tips off at 7:30.

Luppani, who started two seasons at OCC from 1993-95 and owns the school’s single-season and career assists records (228 and 454, respectively), said she knew she would become a coach even in high school.

Soon, Thornton, whom Luppani considers a mentor, knew it too.

“Almost from the first conversation I had with her while recruiting her, I knew she was going to be a coach,” Thornton said. “No. 1, she loved the game and No. 2, she was a student of the game. She was one of only two players I’ve had here [ in 17 seasons] that I let call plays on the floor for us, without looking to me on the bench. She was so smart and made such good decisions, she definitely had coaching written all over her.”

After completing her playing career at Chapman University, Luppani began coaching as a graduate assistant at Humboldt State. After two years there, the second as a full-time assistant, she spent four seasons as an assistant at UC Riverside. She was hired at Santa Ana before last season, when she guided the Dons to a 6-12 record, 2-12 in conference.

This season, Santa Ana is 12-8, 3-1 and ranked No. 12 in Southern California. It can earn a share of the conference lead with a win over the Pirates (20-2, 4-0), ranked No. 3 in Southern California and No. 5 in the state.

Luppani’s competitive drive, clearly visible on the sideline, has helped turn things around at Santa Ana, a program that has struggled in recent years.

“All the credit goes to the players and I’m lucky to have a great coaching staff,” Luppani said.

Thornton and others, however, believe Luppani’s impact on the program has been catalytic.

“Last year, she had them playing hard, but they weren’t very talented,” said Thornton, whose team easily defeated the Dons twice last season. “This year, they’ve already beaten Irvine Valley in overtime and they lost to Riverside by one. Both of those teams are very good, so Santa Ana has proved it can play with anyone.”

Luppani said the turnaround has been mostly a matter of finding players with a high level of commitment. She said team chemistry has also been a large contributor to a solid season.

Anyone who watches Luppani coach, can’t question her commitment to the success of her team.

“I’m a little bit intense,” Luppani, 31, said. “I tell the players that when I’m recruiting them. I’m a very, very competitive person. I keep score going to the water cooler.”

Luppani, whose sideline performance against Riverside included squatting, stalking, stomping, clapping and verbally exhorting her players, said the worst thing about coaching is “not being able to play.

“But it’s the second best thing to playing,” she added. “I think it might be very scary to look at me in a regular job, where there was no way to keep score.”

Luppani said she is thankful for the things she learned from Thornton, but she assigned no importance to her now annual return to OCC.