A team of any kind is compiled of many different people ranging from players to captains to coaches.

Since the year 2000, Teresa Velazquez-Ortega has been the head coach for the Cerritos College volleyball, but will no longer be leading the team next season.

Many people may not know how genuine the smile on Velazquez-Ortega’s face is.

If people knew how she got to where she is now, they would understand without hesitation.

Humble Beginnings

Velazquez-Ortega came to the United States with a degree in dentistry at 30 years old and was working in order to provide for herself.

She was then granted with an opportunity to not only return to school to better her future but to return to the sport she loved most.

“After I left Mexico I thought I was leaving volleyball forever,” she said.

“Then I met Jeanine Prindle.”

Prindle was the head coach for the Cerritos College volleyball team.

“We needed a translator to talk to each other but we ‘spoke’ volleyball very well,” Prindle stated.

Velazquez-Ortega jumped at the opportunity and made the most of it.

“Once I stepped on the campus I felt at home,” she admitted.

Playing Days

From that point on she managed to balance working in the morning, volleyball practice after work and then taking ESL classes after practice.

Repeating these steps five days a week became the routine for Velazquez-Ortega.

Following her first season in 1989, she got married in 1990.

Teammates and coaches worried that she might get pregnant before her sophomore season.

During practice one day Velazquez-Ortega felt sick and at that moment everyone in the gym knew why.

“I said I didn’t feel good and everybody looked at me like, ‘Told you, you were pregnant,’ and I was like ‘What?’” she recalled.

Sure enough her teammates and her coaches were right. She had gotten pregnant a month before the season was set to start.

Velazquez-Ortega did not let that slow her down as she not only started the season right on schedule but completed the season pregnant and all.

She said she could not let herself sit out the season because she had to finish what she started.

“It was a new experience for me as a coach but me and the training staff took ever precaution to make it a safe experience for her,” Prindle stated.

What eventually turned into her most memorable moment as a Falcon was facing Pasadena City College in the state tournament’s final four.

Cerritos trailed in the series 0-2 and was on its way to losing the third and final game, when Velazquez-Ortega laid out for a loose ball and landed on her stomach.

The entire team and fans gasped all at once. Prindle remembers the moment vividly.

“I remember everything about the match. She got the wind knocked out of her and came out of the game,” Prindle recalled.

“The trainer said she was okay to go back in the game and she came and sat next to me and said ‘Put me back in the game now!’ I relented but I subbed her back in the game,” she added.

Velazquez-Ortega not only returned to the game but also led the charge to not only come back and win the game but ultimately to win three straight games and take the series from Pasadena City.

Five months later she gave birth to a healthy baby boy.

Coaching Days

Following her playing days she was offered a job as equipment manager, a position that she still holds today.

It was not the only job she was offered as Prindle offered her a position to be assistant coach for the volleyball team.

“She has outstanding knowledge and experience as a volleyball player. Equally important she was very good at giving individual coaching,” Prindle stated.

Velazquez-Ortega was assistant coach until 2000 when she was offered the head coaching job, as she was the successor of her role model Jeanine Prindle.

She admitted that she was honored to take the job and took it in order to again, finish what she started.

“I was very pleased that she would be the next coach…She was very dedicated and was a loyal coach in the program,” she said.

Velazquez-Ortega has held onto the position since then and will not return as head coach next season for personal reasons. However, will remain the equipment manager.

She will go into the Cerritos Hall of Fame as a player selected to Asics All-America Team and a two-time All-State Tournament player.

According to Velazquez-Ortega being honored in the Cerritos Hall of Fame means, “All the sacrifices through the years were worth it. In my 29 plus years at Cerritos its something to be proud of.”