How a loal coach built a lacrosse dynasty at Torrey Pines High School

For years, lacrosse, a sport that has deep roots on the East Coast, has been scoring points here in the West, thanks to a cadre of dedicated coaches including Torrey Pines High School Coach Jono Zissi, his staff, and players. “It’s staggering where lacrosse has come,” Zissi reflects. “Now more schools than ever offer the sport and it has exploded at participation levels.”

Zissi, considered one of the most well-respected high school coaches in the country, is now in his 15th season at the helm of the Torrey Pines Falcons lacrosse team, which has become a lacrosse dynasty, winning 11 CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) championships and scoring an impressive record of 238 wins and 63 losses. 

Last year, the Falcons went 17-3, finishing the spring ranked first in Southern California, second in California, and third in the West. For the past seven years, the team has also been nationally ranked, competing against powerhouse teams in the East where the game was first played by Native American tribes (in what is now upper New York and lower Ontario) long before Christopher Columbus set foot in the New World. Called “baggataway” back then, French settlers renamed the game lacrosse because the long stick (then with a bag and now with a net), used to catch, carry, and toss the ball resembled the crozier, used by bishops.

Zissi grew up in Winchester, Massachusetts, playing multiple sports including lacrosse, which helped him gain admission to Tufts University. He graduated with degrees in psychology and sociology before heading to San Diego where he earned a master’s degree in education, and in 2003 started a coaching program at the University of San Diego High School, now known as Cathedral Catholic. He was then co-head coach and a faculty member at The Bishop’s School before joining Torrey Pines High School to lead the lacrosse program.

“It used to be that the only kids who played lacrosse were those who didn’t make other sports teams,” he says. “That’s no longer the case. A large part of it is that it’s a fun game, and you don’t need to be six feet tall to play it.”

Zissi emphasizes that it took hard work to build the sport here in San Diego County. He and fellow coaches went to physical education classes at area schools to introduce the sport to students and parents. “It was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears,” he recalls of a grueling schedule that included coaching students from third through sixth grades, followed by middle and high school practices. “We had to be passionate and crazy to do what we were doing.” 

Their persistence paid off, helping to popularize the sport, win championships, and help students with college admissions. Many of Zissi’s players have landed at top universities, received scholarships, and are now launching successful careers including Marco Napolitano and Conrad Delgado, who both played lacrosse at the University of Notre Dame. In an email, Delgado recounted the hard work and thrill of winning CIF championships during his sophomore and junior years. “I would not have ended up where I did if it were not for my time at Torrey Pines and Jono’s help in the recruitment process,” he wrote. “Jono is truly great at helping kids get noticed by schools for lacrosse. A lot of the people I played with in high school owe where we ended up in large part to Jono.” Delgado is now working on a PhD in aerospace engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

This spring, former Falcon Miles Botkiss will graduate from Harvard University, and his fellow TPHS teammate Porter Hollen, from Brown. During a phone call from New York City, where Hollen will soon begin a career as an investment banker, he told me he was the “ball boy” when his two older brothers played lacrosse at Torrey Pines, and he later made the varsity team as a freshman. He recalls that the coach ran the high school program like a college program so that that there were no “speed bumps” when he joined the Brown lacrosse team. But Hollen says Zissi’s influence went far beyond the game, emphasizing building bonds with teammates, life skills, and public speaking. “He taught me about life beyond lacrosse,” Hollen reflects. “He helped to shape me into the man I am today.”

Torrey Pines junior Ross Jacobsen, who has his sights set on Dartmouth, says in addition to emphasizing hard work in the classroom and on the field, the coach has also shown him how important it is to give back to the community. The team volunteers for projects both in and out of season, from packaging food at Feeding San Diego’s warehouse to building playhouses for children through Habitat for Humanity.

John Prior, a Torrey Pines senior, is heading to West Point, shipping out in June for basic training. He says, “The Torrey Pines lacrosse program pushes its players to not only chase excellence in the field but in the classroom as well. I have grown to be a well-rounded man much to the credit of Coach Zissi and the culture that he built.”