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When Joe Cascione walked into the athletic director’s office at Los Angeles Mission College with the idea of starting a women’s tennis team, he knew how it would sound. He had spent his entire life in baseball—27 years as a coach—and had never coached women or a racquet sport.

“I told him, ‘I have an idea. I’d love to start a women’s tennis team. I don’t have any background in tennis, but I think I can surround myself with people who know the technical side of the sport, and I love it so much that I think we can do well,’” recalled Cascione, a successful former baseball player at Pierce College and Cal Lutheran.

It was understandable that few understood the decision.

“Everyone thought I was going through a midlife crisis,” Cascione said with a laugh. “They’d say to me, ‘What are you doing? You’re having a breakdown.’”

College administrators also wondered if it wouldn’t be better to have a women’s soccer team, given the demographics of the San Fernando Valley. But Cascione presented them with a list of potential players who could attend Mission College.

“At first I was against it,” recalled Steve Ruys, director of athletics at Mission College. “I told him that women’s soccer was better for this area. But he was persistent.”

In the front row, from left to right, bottom, are the Mission College sophomores: Jaelyn Rivera, Priscilla Grinner, CiCi Díaz, Kirsten Bonzon, Amy Nghiem and Natalia Ponce. In the second row, from left to right, top, are the four new team members: Dsyray Chan, Daisylynne Castaneda, Julieta Sierra and Lena Onejeme.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

Four years later, the gamble paid off in a big way. Last April, the Mission College Eagles won the first California Community College Athletic Assn. (CCCAA) state team championship in the school’s history, and they did so with a perfect 25-0 record.

Not only did they win the community college’s first championship, but they did so with local players and against powerhouse schools—some of which even fielded international players. Unlike other schools, Mission College does not have its own tennis courts and rents courts at a nearby park to practice and play its home matches.

In CCCAA tennis, colleges face off against each other in team matches. Each match consists of a set number of singles and doubles matches, and the winner is determined by the team’s cumulative score.

In the final of a four-day tournament in Ojai, Mission College faced Sierra College — the top seed from Northern California and also undefeated — and won a dramatic match. The Eagles dominated the doubles, but Sierra fought back in the singles and took a 4-3 lead.

Then, Genesis Nochez (West Ranch) tied the series at 4-4, and everything came down to Josilyn Rivera (Birmingham) in a head-to-head match against Autumn Holmes of Sierra. To add to the drama of the day, Rivera lost the first set, bounced back with a 6-1 victory in the second and clinched the championship in a tiebreak she won without giving up a single point, for a final score of 3-6, 6-1, 7-6 (7-0).

In addition, the duo of Jaelyn Rivera (Birmingham) and Priscilla Grinner (Granada Hills) were crowned state doubles champions after defeating a Chabot College pair.

Amy Nghiem takes a shot during Mission College practice at El Cariso Regional Community Park in Sylmar.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

“I had always thought about winning the Ojai tournament, but I never thought it would actually happen,” said Grinner, 19, a two-time CIF champion with Granada Hills.

“Winning that tournament meant everything to me and my family; it was like giving back to the community where I grew up, and that meant so much to me,” said Jaelyn, 20, Josilyn’s older sister.

Amy Nghiem was one of Mission College’s key players. The Granada Hills Charter alumna joined the Eagles alongside her teammates Grinner and América Fragoso, both from Granada Hills.

Cascione was also named Western State Conference coach of the year.

For the players, the sense of teamwork that the coach instilled was vital to building a competitive program.

“The coaches encourage us to be our best. Without our teammates, without that connection, without that camaraderie, and without all the time we spent together, it wouldn’t have been possible,” Grinner said of the championship.

Jaelyn Rivera serves during her team’s practice at El Cariso Regional Community Park in Sylmar.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

Cascione stepped down as head baseball coach at Mission College in 2019 after 19 years at the helm of the program. Then came the pandemic — and with it, a year and a half to reflect on what the next step in his athletic and professional life would be. The answer lay in the other sport he had loved since childhood, as he had always played tennis in his free time.

“If I had to do it all over again, I’d probably choose to play tennis instead of baseball,” confessed Cascione, who was twice named State West Conference coach of the year in baseball. “Baseball was my life, and I owe it everything. But there’s something about tennis. When I was seven, I’d watch it on TV and enjoy every minute of it.”

But convincing the first female players to join a new tennis program — in the midst of a pandemic and without its own courts — was no easy task. In the community college system, recruitment is crucial, and competing against schools such as Glendale, College of the Canyons, and Pierce—which have their own facilities—is always an uphill battle for Mission College.

“I couldn’t tell them, ‘We’re going to be a good team,’’ Cascione said. “I really didn’t know. ”

Nor was it easy to convince a tennis player to join a program led by a baseball coach. That’s where another of Cascione’s strengths came into play: his candor.

“The only thing I kept telling them was, ‘You’re going to work hard, and you’re going to have a coach who’s going to push you to your limits and who’s going to be there for you every time we’re on the court,’” Cascione said. “There has to be a belief that, even when things go wrong, you’ll hear your teammates cheering you on. And that’s not something you mention just once or twice; it’s something we talk about almost every day in this program.”

Seven young women accepted the challenge in the first year and nine in 2023. Faced with a lack of dedicated facilities, Cascione applied the same philosophy he used when his baseball team had to rent a field: adapt and overcome the obstacle.

In its first season, in 2022, the team surprised everyone by finishing second in its division in the State Western Conference. Since that first season, Cascione has worked to bring the team-oriented mindset he preached in baseball over to tennis.

“I think he’s very articulate,” said Grinner, who hopes to transfer to Cal Lutheran after this year to play alongside her teammate Jaelyn. “He’s able to explain things to you and encourage you even when you’re feeling really, really down, and I think that’s one of his best qualities.”

Said assistant coach Yulia Zhytelna, “First and foremost, he’s a baseball coach, and on the court he shows exactly who he is — in the way he talks, how he cheers, and how he addresses the girls. He doesn’t try to hide anything; that’s just who he is, and I’ve loved that about him.”

Recruiting the talented Nghiem was one of the championship team’s greatest successes. Cascione himself gave her a tour of the school.

“It’s not a very big school, but they’ll go above and beyond for you. They’ll stand by you,” said Nghiem, who also highlighted the team’s culture of camaraderie. “We all went to practice every day. Even if you were sick, you were there. You didn’t have to practice, but you were there. You always supported each other.”

Mission College, located in an area with a strong Latino presence in the northern San Fernando Valley, competed against programs with a long history, their own facilities and international players —such as Glendale, College of the Canyons, Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Santa Monica — so the coaching staff was key to instilling a positive mindset in the players, without letting them get pigeonholed.

“Not many people see us as a community capable of achieving something this big,” said Jaelyn. “So being able to bring the title home to this community really shows the people around us—our peers, our community, and our ethnic group — that it’s possible to achieve something when you put in all your effort.”

Cascione, originally from New York, has lived in the San Fernando Valley since childhood and attended St. Genevieve High in Panorama City. He emphasizes that his coaching staff, which is also deeply rooted in the community, understands the realities of their players’ lives.

“Many of these young women face challenges in various ways. Many hold down two jobs; some come from broken homes and need our support,” said Cascione, who was mentored by Bob Lofrano at Pierce College and Rich Hill at Cal Lutheran.

His assistants, Porfirio Cervantes and Zhytelna — a former Cal State Northridge player who is now a professional — also maintain strong ties to the Valley community.

“I’ve seen the girls’ motivation, especially among the freshmen,” said Zhytelna, the female voice on the coaching staff and a mentor to the players. “I’ve seen in their eyes that they want to give their best.

“At the end of the day, tennis is just a game, and you have to enjoy it — because that’s how the best experiences come about, when you’re enjoying yourself.”

At a community college, where the players change every one or two years, continuity depends on the culture being passed down from one generation to the next.

“The most effective way is through the players themselves,” explained Cascione. “The sophomores pass it on to the newcomers. We talk almost every day about being a great person, a great sister, a great daughter and they have to believe that all of that contributes to making a great tennis player and a great team.”

For Cascione, the success of the tennis program at Mission College — a school with fewer than 10,000 students — boils down to one word: belief.

“The moment you let someone tell you that you can’t, you’re letting negativity in,” said the coach. “Here, we dream big. Sometimes we’ll fall short, but we’re always going to give it our all.”

The results are already beginning to show across the entire athletics department. Mission College recently launched its men’s tennis program — also featuring local players — using the same formula that led to the women’s team’s success.

Mission College is currently in the first phase of construction on its own facilities, which will include soccer and softball fields. Phase two will include tennis courts.

John Steinbeck’s 1952 novel “East of Eden,” an Oprah’s Book Club Selection in 2003, is a retelling, or actually two retellings, of the Cain and Abel story, first in Connecticut with half-brothers Charles and Adam Trask, and then in the author’s native Salinas Valley with Adam’s fraternal twin sons, Cal and Aron, in each case competing with one another for their father’s love. Not wanting you to miss his meaning, if you haven’t already guessed by the title, Steinbeck has a character read the entire passage from Genesis.

The stories, which together run from the late 19th century through World War I, are connected by a woman named Cathy Ames, whom Adam marries and who gives birth to Cal and Aron — which I suppose makes her the Eve in this household, though that’s not a theological road Steinbeck chose to really explore.

In 1955, Elia Kazan directed a film version, a color-mad Cinemascope melodrama that told only the Cal and Aron part of the story; significantly, it was the film debut of James Dean and so will live forever. Writing in The Times in 2005, Kenneth Turan called it “not only one of Kazan’s richest films and Dean’s first significant role” but “arguably the actor’s best performance.”

Kazan’s granddaughter Zoe Kazan has written the screenplay and worked with Jeb Stuart as co-showrunners for a new “East of Eden” adaptation, a seven-episode miniseries debuting Thursday on Netflix. Though it omits a sizable chunk of what is after all a very long book, it takes its chronology whole, putting Cathy front and center in the publicity and in the show, owing largely to Florence Pugh‘s performance as its most dynamic character.

Kazan begins her telling with a badly beaten woman dragging herself through the night as a female voice delivers an edited, elaborated version of the author’s thoughts on difference. (It is a book brimming with thoughts.) “I believe there are monsters born in this world to human parents … A child may be born perfect of body but without kindness or the potential of conscience. Still, you must not forget, everyone is normal to himself. And to a monster, the norm must seem monstrous.” Given that the novel’s narrator is Steinbeck, it’s hard to say just who the “I” is here, but I assume the gender swap has something to do with wanting to literally give this version a female voice.

The monster is Cathy, crawling to the porch of the farmhouse occupied by Charles (Mike Faist), who thinks they should call the sheriff, and Adam (Christopher Abbott), who is compelled to care for her. Close your eyes if you don’t want to know anything more about this 73-year-old bestseller, but Cathy has already possibly driven a man to suicide and definitely burned down her house with her parents locked inside. She was beaten up by her former pimp, whose mistress she’d become and from whom she was stealing. You may be thinking “sociopath.”

The series backs up 25 years to a Connecticut farm where father Cyrus Trask (Tracy Letts), a peg-legged Civil War veteran, rejects Charles’ gift of a new knife in favor of Adam’s present of a stray puppy, creating a long trail of jealousy. He’ll later pack pacifistic Adam off to the army (because, he says, he loves him better), with Charles unhappily constrained to stay and work the farm (though he proves good at it). After years in service and living in hobo jungles, Adam returns home.

Standout performers include Hoon Lee as Lee, left, and Ciarán Hinds as Samuel Hamilton.

(Kirsty Griffin / Netflix)

Cathy crawls to their doorstep; Charles sees through her, which will earn him her respect, but Adam falls for her, marries her and drags her west to California, where she doesn’t want to go and doesn’t plan to stay. (She’s quite upfront about this, but Adam is a poor listener.) She gives birth to Cal (younger, Bodhi Aisher; older, Joseph Zada), who will grow up to wonder if he’s bad, and Aron (younger, Jonah Wren Phillips; older, Joe Anders), whom everyone thinks is good, and returns to the life of a prostitute, which suits her fine. And that is probably enough plot for me to relate.

Pugh impressively represents Cathy’s outward self through successive stages; she’s not a character born to develop, though she will have various crises to navigate, and the actor imbues her with as much nuance as the part allows. She’s the main reason to watch, though there are standout performances from Hoon Lee as Lee, a philosophical, intellectual, American-born Chinese man who works for Adam and becomes a kind of surrogate mother to Cal and Aron; and from Ciarán Hinds as Samuel Hamilton, a jovial Irishman, virtually the only remnant of the novel’s Hamiltons, who stand in for Steinbeck’s own family. Faist does a lot with the taciturn, perceptive Charles. Martha Plimpton, never not great, plays Faye, a madam for whom Cathy works; and Zoe Phillips makes an impression in her scattered scenes as Abra Bacon, who’ll date Aron but feels connected to Cal.

Kazan and Stuart do cover all the main plot points and themes — good and evil, love and jealousy, inherited character and (the big one) the possibility of change. Unavoidably the text has been chopped and channeled, with some swapping of parts, bits of narration screwed into dialogue and events described in a paragraph blown out into scenes. Certain thoughts inside Cathy’s head have been made concrete.

The adapters don’t add too much material of their own, Steinbeck having provided a wealth of character descriptions, backstory, philosophical rumination and social criticism for every occasion, but here and there they’ll stress a point or provide something new in order to make sense of Cathy. But they don’t overdo it. (Steinbeck, declaring her unknowable, cuts her a lot of slack, walking back his earlier “monster” comments: “Who knows but that she tried to tell someone or everyone what she was like and could not, for lack of a common language. It is easy to say she was bad, but there is little meaning unless we know why.”) Oddly, the Cain and Abel elements in the Cal and Aron story, which launched Dean’s career, don’t really register.

If nothing else, the miniseries reminds us that adaptation is a difficult job that grows harder the more complex and celebrated the original text, and the more necessary it is to honor it. (This is why pulp fiction has produced so many memorable movies.) Things will always be lost in translation, not least from the pictures in your head to the pictures on the screen. If you’re going to film a literary monument, and a period piece to boot, you’re going to have to spend some money.

But the production here betrays its economy, and the direction, by Garth Davis and Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, remains earthbound, held down by mournful strings and devoid of color. The New Zealand landscape does echo the rolling hills of Central California, in a dry season, but it’s a dreary vision, hardly the paradise of Steinbeck’s memory, book or metaphor.