Richard Malatesta is the coach that has been coaching the golf team of Malden High School for over 20 years. He is interested in “dealing with both young men and women who are eager to learn about golf and watching them develop as players, competitors and human beings.” Malatesta’s method in training is repetition and awareness of one’s posture.
What he loves about golf is “the fact that you can never master it, yet still strive to”. This year was a rough one for the golf team of Malden High due to the large amount of new members. When dealing with defeat after a game, Coach Malatesta would face it with optimism. Rather than complaining about the results, he pointed out what they did wrong and how to improve on their mistakes and praised the players whenever they did something impressive during the game.
Malatesta’s goals for next year are “to cultivate and see further improvement in the student-athletes’ skills levels and understanding of the game of golf and “have the players love the sport.” He believed that “the love for the sport stays while win and lose comes and goes.” To him , golf is not just about the “numeral scores” but as any other sport, it is also about a player’s effort to improve and the time one invests in it. What they lacked in skill, the new players made it up with in their dedication to improve and their willing and enthusiastic attitude during practice. Malatesta enjoys seeing the team’s dedication.
Through this season’s coaching, besides from all the fun he experienced while training his team, Malatesta learned “that golf is alive and well at MHS and will be for years to come.”
