![\"Ryan](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/TNH-L-LoomanMug-01.jpg\")
Ryan Looman<\/p>\nRyan Looman cut his teeth in coaching before he knew he was going to be a teacher.<\/p>\n
Now that he\u2019s an administrator in the Mayfield school district, the 41-year-old from Ashtabula has realized his fire to coach remains.<\/p>\n
With that in mind, Looman has been approved as Mayfield\u2019s new girls basketball coach, taking over for former coach Cullen Harris who stepped down after this past season. Looman was previously the Wildcats\u2019 head coach, leaving that post in 2021 to take an assistant principal\u2019s job in Twinsburg.<\/p>\n
Now he\u2019s back in Mayfield and hungrier than ever to break out his head-coaching clipboard.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m ecstatic,\u201d Looman said. \u201cCoaching is one of those things I love doing. It\u2019s why I got into coaching even before I knew I wanted to teach. To have this opportunity to do it again is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ryan Looman<\/p>\n
Oftentimes, administrators are not candidates to coach. But when Looman went to Twinsburg as an assistant principal in 2021 and doubled as the Tigers\u2019 girls basketball coach for a few years, it showed he was up for the challenge.<\/p>\n
The challenge?<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s all about time management and prioritizing,\u201d he said. \u201cAs a teacher, your day is more on a schedule. You\u2019ve got your planning period, your lunch\u2026 You know when you have time during the day to get things done. As a principal, you never quite know what the day is going to look like when you walk into that building every day. \u2026 Maybe I\u2019ll be breaking down film when the kids are in bed or getting up early before work starts to do things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looman credits members of Mayfield\u2019s administration for affording him the opportunity to lead the Wildcats again.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe support of (Principal) Brian Linn, (outgoing AD) Keith Leffler and our superintendent Dr. (Michael) Barnes has allowed this to move forward,\u201d Looman said. \u201cIt\u2019s not every day you see administrators allowed to coach in their district. I think it\u2019s awesome they\u2019re allowing this to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayfield is coming off a season in which it finished 10-12 (5-5 in the Western Reserve Conference). While leading scorer and all-News-Herald performer Sydney Montgomery graduated, returnees include rising seniors Alexa Januszewski, Bri Gati, Maddie Williams and Shaniya Cook \u2013 a quartet Looman raves over.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose four seniors are good leaders in our program,\u201d Looman said. \u201cThey\u2019ve consistently been in our workouts and shootouts. We also have a good mix of sophomores and juniors and four freshmen that have been bright spots, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayfield enters the Suburban League this coming school year, coming on the heels of the Western Reserve Conference\u2019s breakup. Gone are league games against Riverside, Chardon, North, South and Kenston (though Kenston joins them in the Suburban). In are league games with the likes of Twinsburg, Nordonia, Aurora, Copley and others.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are going to be very few nights off in this new league,\u201d Looman said. \u201cOur mindset has got to be being at our best whether it\u2019s in open gyms, weightlifting, games. \u2026 that\u2019s what is going to be demanded of us in our new conference.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looman will be assisted by R.J. Paglio, Ava Ryncarz and Hannah Peterson. Paglio formerly coached with Looman at Mayfield, Peterson played for Looman at Mayfield and Ryncarz was a standout at John Carroll.<\/p>\n
Familiarity with the program is a strength as the new coach steps in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been to practices and games the last couple years. \u201cI know a lot of the coaches in the area, and I know a lot about the kids we have coming back and their strengths. When this job opened up, I had an idea of what I like to do and how it fits the kids we have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now that he has the job, he feels at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if my wife would say this, but I think I\u2019m a better person when I\u2019m coaching,\u201d he said. \u201cI love doing it. You always have that coaching bug in you. When I came back to Mayfield I didn\u2019t know this opportunity would be here. But I\u2019m ecstatic it is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ryan Looman cut his teeth in coaching before he knew he was going to be a teacher. Now…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,24428,3255,94671,28148,94672],"class_list":["post-775470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-high-school-girls-basketball","tag-high-school-sports","tag-mayfield-high-school","tag-new-head-coach","tag-ryan-looman"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116845440376657998","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}