Dear Aztec Tennis Reporter: I was Skip Redondo’s assistant on that 1984 team. I was 23, fresh out of college I knew I wanted to coach. Skip wanted to recruit me as a player out of San Diego City College but I thought I would have a better chance to play at Weber State.
After graduating in 1983 I asked Skip if I could come help him.
I was flattered that he remembered me and over the moon that he said he would love for me to help him. So began my 35-plus year journey in Division One, mostly the highest level of college tennis.
At SDSU I was coaching guys I had played against. Some of them were older than me. The thing I remember is the way they bonded to me, allowed me to give them insights and help.
So many great things happened that year including the birth of Ryan Redondo! Yes I remember him as an infant already helping “coach the team”.
Skip’s gift to me was giving me way more responsibility than I deserved and I ran with it. My two years working for him at San Diego State set me up for the rest of my career.
I went from there to UCLA as women’s assistant, then 16 years as a Head Women’s Coach in the Big Ten, building the program from worst to nearly the top, twice Big 10 Coach of the Year (1998 and 2003) and six times in NCAA post-season competition. From there I became Head Coach at Utah, took a program that hadn’t finished higher than 5th and won 2 Mountain West Titles when the MWC was a 3 & sometimes 4 bid league! Yes that was 4 top 40 teams!!
2 times I was MWC coach of the year! In 2012 we moved to the PAC 12 and that year made a NCAA regional final in Miami upsetting Big 12 Champion Texas Tech. After 12 years there I parted ways and took on a new challenge at Butler University, where I am building a solid program at a small, academically-oriented, basketball-centric school in the Heart of America.
I loved the 1984 Aztec team. To this day I love every one of those guys more than they could ever know. Skip was unbelievably kind to me!
Mat Iandolo
Assistant Aztec Men’s Coach
1983-85