Fountain Valley tennis started from the bottom, but now a powerhouse
Harshul Patel remembers his early days as Fountain Valley High tennis coach with a smile.
Patel took over the Barons boys’ and girls’ programs in 2011. In those days, every time that Fountain Valley would earn a significant win, he would take the players to the nearby Costco food court to celebrate.
“Every time we’d beat the teams that we’d never beat, like San Clemente or Irvine or Beckman, I’d always buy them food at the food court,” he said.
Though there are certainly legions of people who swear by the hot dogs at said food court, the journey was practical as much as anything else. It helped Patel feed many kids for a small amount of money.
Patel knows that tennis is a privileged sport, but many of his players are not country club babies. Far from it.
“I never talk to anybody about this,” he said. “Only the captains of our team know how many kids we have struggling this year, how many kids are not going to pay a single dime. We don’t do fundraising where kids had to come out and do car washes or something else to survive.”
If the Barons tennis program came from humble beginnings, so did Patel. He first picked up a tennis racquet at the age of 14 in his hometown of Ahmedabad, India. At the time it was a large commitment for the family that Patel and his younger brother, Jay, who now coaches tennis at Westminster High, should learn the sport.
“It was a very, very tough time for our family,” said Harshul Patel, who immigrated to America in 1997. “A racquet was costing 7,000 rupees and our dad’s salary was 5,000 rupees a month. I had decided whenever we settle down and whenever we do good financially, I will always go back and help the needy. That’s how high school tennis came in the picture.”
Patel, now 47, has managed to build the Barons into a powerhouse. There have been milestones in the last few years that illustrate that point.
His boys’ and girls’ teams have combined to win four league championships since 2018. The girls had not finished atop the league since 1991.
In 2018, the Barons boys won the CIF Southern Section Division 2 title, the program’s first CIF crown. Three years later, Patel guided a girls’ team devoid of star players to its first CIF championship match.
Fountain Valley’s girls shared the Wave League title with Los Alamitos this season. Ranked No. 1 in Division 2 for much of the season, they earned the No. 4 seed, and hosted the Archer School of Los Angeles in the second round on Friday.
Keep in mind that the Barons have just three tournament players. All are in singles, including junior transfer Gisele Rico, freshman Jaslyn Nguyen and sophomore Katelyn Nguyen. Last year, only Katelyn Nguyen played tournaments.
“Coach is right about how some of us have struggled,” said senior co-captain Rene Do, who plays doubles. “He’s definitely been there every step of the way and finds ways to support us and make it so that we can continue to play tennis, even when girls are having financial issues. Our team is very close-knit … and I feel like a lot of those teams that have tournament players, they don’t really have that because they’re there to win for themselves, basically. For us, it’s a team effort to work together.”
Patel said 80% of his players started off in his camps. Some of his varsity players, like Do, started off their journey on frosh-soph before progressing the program.
His dedication is unmatched. He makes the 45-minute drive from Rancho Santa Margarita each day, and he said he’s received “lucrative” offers to coach other private schools in Orange County. But Patel said he wants to keep giving back at Fountain Valley as long as he can.
Fountain Valley High athletic director and boys’ basketball coach Roger Holmes appreciates that.
“He puts in so much time and energy into the program, so it’s great that they get the payoff with the success they’ve had,” Holmes said. “He’s been a staple on campus now for 12 years.”
This year’s team has bounced back after a rebuilding year last season. Do said she takes pride in the fact that the Barons improved from an 18-0 blowout loss against Huntington Beach last year. This year, Fountain Valley played the Surf League champion Oilers much closer, falling 11-7.
“We came off the high of being in the finals, and we just kept getting destroyed every match,” fellow senior co-captain Melody Hom said with a laugh. “We just lost all our seniors. I think coach has done a really good job of building us back up again.”
That’s what Patel does. Fountain Valley earned three of the six medals at the Wave League finals, including a doubles finals appearance by freshman Kendra Ly and sophomore Anh Thu Truong.
But what’s more important to him is the team’s academic excellence. Do has a 4.6 grade-point average, and Hom a 4.4. Patel said the team’s average GPA among the starters is around a 4.2.
That can translate into smarts on the court, plus Patel has a built-in scouting report. His oldest daughter, Aditi, is a senior tennis player at Tesoro High, so he is more than familiar with many of the top tournament players.
When his Fountain Valley girls get big victories now, they now get taken out for different treats like boba tea or ice cream.
Patel smiled again.
“We upgraded ourselves,” he said.
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