By Ari Gevov
and Casey Sublette
After a month of uncertainty and various coaching changes, Miranda Biteler became the new coach of the girls varsity basketball team.
On Nov. 22, just a day before the team’s 50-47 loss in its first game of the season against West Torrance, Biteler, who before coming to Mira Costa coached a seventh-grade club team, was officially appointed as head coach.
“There were a lot of unknowns the first game,” said Biteler. “I did not have any practice with the team as the head coach, and we played as hard as we could.”
Craig Takahashi, who was the coach of the girls basketball team for a year, abruptly resigned on Oct. 19. Multiple team parents alleged that the Mira Costa administration forced Takahashi to resign because of an inappropriate text message that he sent to a player on the team.
“Coach Takahashi resigned to spend more time with his family,” Principal Ben Dale said.
Mira Costa Vice Principal and Athletic Director Paula Hart posted a job listing for head coach position on the CIF website. Each of the final four candidates for the job received 20 minutes of coaching time with the team, and the players filled out critique sheets for each one.
Trenton Jackson was the original selection for the position. Upon his tentative hiring, Jackson contacted Biteler and asked her to be an assistant coach. Before being officially appointed, Jackson ended up not taking the job.
“Basically, it came down to that I was coming from Van Nuys,” Jackson said. “It was a matter of me being around for my kids and step-children.”
Costa teachers Lisa Claypoole and Glenn Marx stepped in to run practices until a final coach was selected and stayed until Biteler was cleared for the job on Nov. 22.
“I coached some practices, supervised conditioning and was available as a credentialed teacher to help assist new coaches,” Claypoole said.
Dale called a meeting with team parents on Nov. 14 to both restart the team’s booster club and introduce Jackson, who was at the time on track to be head coach. At the meeting, parents selected Bill Austin as president of the club’s board, which consists of Debbie Martucci, Mark Martucci, Sheryl Rooker and Carol Tondo.
“The goal here is to do the best we can do,” Austin said. “We would like to have a decent season for the girls. For the situation she was put in, she [Biteler] is doing the best she can do.”
Costa lost, 58-39, to Peninsula High School in its most recent game on Nov. 3, which was part of the Inglewood Tournament of Champions, in which Mira Costa placed eighth. The girls will play on Dec. 20 in the Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions.
“I think that as a team that we are all tired,” senior captain Mackenzie Austin said. “Through this entire process we got caught up with the politics, but there is still one reason why we are going through with it: because all our team wants to do is continue playing basketball.”
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