Hoover tennis coach Mher Ivynian was named the Coach of the Year award by the Pacific League for leading the girls’ tennis team to playoffs during the fall season.

Ivynian was a professional tennis coach for more than 10 years, teaching at Fremont and Glorietta park before deciding to teach a high school team.

“Tennis has been in my life forever,” he said. “It was bound to happen that something in my life would be tennis related so I became a tennis coach and I enjoy it.”

He joined the Hoover athletic staff in the spring of 2022, right when the boys’ tennis season started. Ever since then Ivynian has been pushing the tennis team to “be the strongest team possible.”

“I like to push my players to the best of their ability,” said Ivynian. “Even if they think they can’t do it, I like to see a good outcome from them from pushing from training and practicing and that’s the goal. That’s my goal is to push and obviously in a positive light because if you really don’t like the sport you shouldn’t be practicing it, there has to be some sort of love for it.”