Ex-WSU golfer takes long way to UCLA

So far the fallout has been minimal.

But Ryan Ressa expects that to change as more and more friends from his hometown of Pullman and Washington State University learn he has gone all Bruin on them.

The 29-year-old Ressa, who played golf for Pullman High School and later became both a player and assistant coach at Washington State, recently accepted a job as the assistant men’s golf coach under Derek Freeman at UCLA. And as a lifelong Cougar fan and WSU graduate he figures to eventually catch some grief for siding with the Pacific-10 Conference rival Bruins.

“I haven’t heard much yet, but I’m sure I will,” Ressa said Friday afternoon, while completing his move from Durham, N.C. – where he served the previous two years as an assistant at Duke University – to the sprawling city of Los Angeles.

One person who has already heard about Ressa’s new job, and who remains very supportive of his latest career move, is WSU golf coach Walt Williams. Not only did Williams coach Ressa for two seasons in college, but he also gave him a position as a volunteer assistant on his staff and later hired him as a full-time assistant.

“Walt’s OK with just about anything I do,” Ressa said, “as long as I don’t go across the state (to the University of Washington) and put on that purple and gold. He’s a great guy, and he’s going to help you out wherever – but if you cross that line and go to work for the Huskies, it’s probably over.”

Even his older brother, Tim, who is the head professional at Stoneridge Golf Club in Blanchard, Idaho, and a former teammate at Pullman High and WSU, claims he can deal with Ressa’s decision to become a Bruin.

“As long as he doesn’t end up at UW,” the elder Ressa added. “Otherwise, I’m happy for him.”

The route Ressa has taken to get where he is today has been a bit circuitous.

After graduating from high school, he went to WSU for a year and walked on to the Cougars golf team. But following his freshman year, he decided to take some time off from school and moved to Las Vegas, where he spent the next years working at various courses in the area.

That was all the time it took for Ressa to decide he wasn’t cut out to be a club professional, especially one confined primarily to the pro shop. So he went back to school at College of the Desert in Palm Desert, Calif., and spent two years there – winning the 2002 California Junior College state championship – before transferring back to WSU, when he finished his final year of college eligibility with the Cougars and earned his degree in sociology.

After graduating in the spring of 2003, Ressa signed on with Williams at WSU. But after assisting at his alma mater for two years, he accepted an assistant’s job under Tim Mickelson at the University of San Diego, where he helped lead the Toreros to a second-place finish in the 2006-07 West Coast Conference Tournament.

The next year he moved on to Duke, where he spent two years as an assistant under O.D. Vincent.

“I took kind of a weird route through school and to where I am now,” Ressa said. “But it’s been a great learning experience. It was tough to leave Duke, because Duke is a great place and I really enjoyed my time there.

“But growing up in the Pac-10 and always putting UCLA up on that pedestal as one of those championship programs, both athletically and academically, it made a lot of sense for me to come back out to the West Coast and work at this high level as an assistant – hopefully in my last job before I become a head coach.”

At any major college, no doubt … except one.