Less than two years after he promised to bring the Pepperdine men’s basketball program back to respectability, head coach Vance Walberg has quit. He submitted his resignation last Thursday. Although Walberg cited family reasons for his abrupt leave, he had recently been the subject of scrutiny over his coaching methods.
Pepperdine Athletic Director John Watson acknowledged last week that Walberg had used harsh language toward players and once made a player suck his thumb as punishment. But, he said, it did not rise to the level of abuse.
“I absolutely looked into it and I spoke with every player, every coach, but there was no abuse that has taken place,” Watson said at a press conference.
During a self-analysis in the fall, Pepperine found that the team had committed secondary violations of the NCAA rules, including exceeding the number of allowed recruiting days. The school reported these violations to the NCAA, and “adjusted our system to accommodate those errors,” Watson said. He said the NCAA violations had nothing to do with Walberg’s resignation.
Walberg, 56, did not attend the press conference. He released a statement later in the day.
“This is a beautiful place,” Walberg said. “It just comes down to what I need to do personally and what’s best for my family. I’d like to thank the entire Pepperdine community for their support. We have a lot of good people here. We’ve got some really good kids on this team and I wish them well.”
The Waves (6-14, 0-4 in West Coast Conference play) immediately replaced Walberg with assistant Eric Bridgeland on an interim basis. A second-year assistant coach, he has no prior Division I head coaching experience, although Bridgeland was a head coach at the Division III level for seven years, including an appearance in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament in 2006 with Puget Sound.
“This is not how we drew it up, but we’re going to make the best of it,” Bridgeland said. “The most important task at hand is to pull our family together and make sure every individual team member is OK. We’ve got a young, resilient group and we’ll move forward as best we can.”
Since Bridgeland took over, the Waves fell to Saint Mary’s on Saturday, 79-74, and lost to Santa Clara, 101-86, on Monday.
The school has begun the search for Walberg’s permanent replacement.
Walberg came to Pepperdine as its 12th head basketball coach in April 2006 from Fresno City College, where he had compiled a 133-11 record and earned a junior college state championship. With an aggressive, fast-paced offensive game style, he promised to bring Pepperdine back to the NCAA Tournament by his second season and into the national Top 25 by his third year.
But reality was far worse for Walberg, with the Waves finishing 8-23 last season and this year having another sub-par campaign.