sports/sports_4_18

Santa Monica's Irvin Is
On Her Way to Stardom

Sunday, May 9 --- There's something heartwarming about a local athlete who goes into the world and becomes successful. People back home say they remember the kid when he or she wasn't well known.
Well, that's the way it will be with Marissa Irvin, who's going to become a famous tennis star. Irvin, born and raised in Santa Monica, is currently a freshman at Stanford. She's already ranked third in the NCAA in womens' singles and recently won the prestigous Ojai
championship.

Irvin was born at St. John's Hospital and lived with her parents, Richard and Helene, in Santa Monica until making her college choice.

She attended John Thomas Dye School in Bel Air through the sixth grade and went on to Harvard-Westlake High in North Hollywood.

In recent years she practiced 12 hours each week at Riviera Tennis Club under the direction of Ron Hightower, the pro at Riviera. She was also guided by former UCLA star Brian Teacher, who was her primary coach.

When Irvin won the U.S. Open junior doubles championship with partner Alexandra Stevenson she became nationally prominent and heavily recruited.

She was deciding between UCLA and Stanford and it wasn't easy.

``It was a very difficult decision,'' said Helene. ``Richard was an All-American vollyeball player at UCLA and it would have been convenient for us to follow her career with the Bruins. And we fell in love with the coach, Stella Sampras.''

However, UCLA lost out.

``The Stanford campus is smaller and that appealed to me,'' Marissa told me the night she made the decision. I called her to discuss another story and didn't realize she had made her choice.

Anything else? I asked. MORE