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Ross Pytko was hired in August as the sixth men’s head coach in UC Santa Cruz program history. He has also been serving as the interim head coach for the women’s program.

Pytko joined the Banana Slugs after five years as an assistant at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Pytko played four years at Boston College, graduating in 2004 with a degree in psychology. He went on to earn a law degree from Suffolk University in Boston before beginning his coaching career.

Recently, reporter Harry Cicma corresponded with Pytko about his new role:

Cicma: What are your goals as the head men’s and women’s coach at UC Santa Cruz?

Pytko: I, of course, have some immediate tennis-specific goals for our team. I want to run an organized program that focuses on playing high-percentage tennis, being the most prepared team for competitions, mentally stronger and more competitive than our opponents and leverages our top-notch strength and conditioning resources. If we can get incrementally better each day in all of these areas, we are going to be well on our way to accomplishing our achievement-based goals. We want to make a return to the top-40 D3 national rankings, win our conference tournament and compete in the NCAA tournament, as a team and individuals in singles and doubles.

In addition to our on-court goals, I am hyper focused on giving the student-athletes a solid foundation of professional skills that will benefit them beyond their college tennis playing days. I preach professionalism at all times. I want our tennis teams to represent the school in a positive way and to conduct ourselves with class and grace at all times. We talk a lot about being good winners and good losers. I want our student-athletes to focus on issues bigger than tennis. At UCSC, I'm so lucky that our mission and objectives include caring about social justice issues, being responsible with respect to the environment and treating other human beings with the dignity that they deserve. I don't view my role as training professional tennis players, but rather, professional people. It's an honor and a privilege to get to do that every day, and one that I don't take lightly.