coach c resigns

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SoCalHoops Coaching News

Granada Hills Basketball Coach
Lou Cicciari Resigns--(Aug. 18, 2001)

We're not sure why this happened, but evidently Lou Cicciari, the 41 year old double-amputee who had been the boys' basketball coach for the past 8 seasons at Granada Hills High School, an LA City Section school located in the northwest San Fernando Valley, has officially resigned. He will reportedly continue to teach at the school, which is accepting applications for the coaching position. According to the two different stories about the resignation in today's and yesterday's LA Times (both of which were credited to Eric Sondheimer, proving that he's still with the paper in some capacity), the official reason for the resignation was "health reasons." As Eric noted, Cicciari, whose legs were amputated at the age of 7, "was considered a coaching trendsetter for the handicapped." He routinely worked with his players year round, entered them into spring tournaments, summer events, and fall leagues, and even if they didn't have the greatest success in terms of wins, his players always played hard.

We've known Lou for several years, not well, but well enough to have had some talks with him about high school sports, recruiting, the subject of transfers among high school students, and our suspicion (and pure speculation) about his resignation is the timing has not only a bit to do with health reasons, but also was related to a lot of rumored turmoil on the GH team this past summer. In any event, we're sorry to see him leave, and wish him good health and success in the classroom.