Waller Helps Chapman Women Succeed With Ease : Volleyball: Last season’s problems are a distant memory for sophomore outside hitter, who has benefited from coaching change.

A year ago, Debi Waller wanted out of Chapman College. Today, she’s just about the happiest Panther on campus.

A lot has changed in a year.

Chapman’s volleyball team has gone from good to very good, possibly great. The Panthers are 21-2 and ranked sixth in the National Collegiate Athletic Assn.’s Division II poll.

The Panthers, who play at Cal State Dominguez Hills tonight, play host to No. 1-ranked Riverside Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.

Waller, a sophomore, is one of the reasons for Chapman’s success. She is a starting outside hitter and leads the team in kills.

Yet success was never the issue. Waller is at ease this season. The troubles that nearly brought her to transfer, or quit volleyball altogether, are in the past.

The program is still intact after the college’s January cost-cutting efforts that virtually eliminated all but four Division II sports.

But the program received a new look when Mary Cahill was hired as coach to replace Tom Read, who resigned in February. Waller said Cahill has been less severe and more positive than her predecessor.

“Everything is so different this year,” said Waller, a graduate of Whittier Christian High School. “The whole team has responded because the situation is much better. I really love volleyball again.”

Waller couldn’t say that last season. For her, the first year of college was full of turmoil.

Waller, who was a two-time All-Southern Section selection, was lightly recruited out of high school.

“Whittier Christian doesn’t attract too many recruiters,” Waller said. “I got some letters asking if I would send videotape of one of our games, but I never followed up on it. I should have, but I was chicken. I didn’t want to leave the area.”

During the summer, Waller went to Australia with an all-star team coached by Randy Bush, who was an assistant at Chapman. Bush was impressed by her abilities and convinced her to come to Chapman by offering her a full scholarship.

When the summer workouts began, Waller struggled. She had been through tough practices at Whittier Christian and with the Cal Juniors, her club team, but nothing had prepared her for Read.

“Tom’s philosophy was to push a team and put pressure on them,” said Cahill, who played for Read at Chapman from 1984-86. “I liked it because I was better under pressure. But this team didn’t react to that.”

Waller dreaded practice. She felt Read singled out for her mistakes.

“He would get right in my face and start screaming,” Waller said. “Some of the veterans let me know it wasn’t me, that he treated everyone that way. Still, it was hard to take. I left practice crying a few times.”

Read also demanded that the team run a two-mile course in under 15 minutes. Waller, who has asthma, could never make the time.

“We had to do that every day until the entire team made it,” Waller said. “Only four players did all season.”

Waller never adjusted to Read’s style, but she tried to make the best of it. But other distractions, off the court, made that nearly impossible.

Waller had barely started classes when rumors about financial troubles in the athletic department began to circulate. She heard that the school might drop to the Division III level.

Division III schools cannot offer scholarships, so Waller was concerned for her future.

Officials said that all scholarships would be honored, but if the school dropped to Division III, players under scholarships would not be allowed to compete.

“I had no idea where or if I would even be going to college the next year,” Waller said.

The Panthers still had a good season, finishing third in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. with a 24-20 record. They advanced to the NCAA tournament, but lost in the first round to Cal State Northridge.

The school decided in January to remain on the Division II level, and women’s volleyball remained a scholarship sport. Baseball and men’s and women’s basketball are Chapman’s only other sports to offer scholarships.

In February, Read resigned. However, it didn’t seem to matter to Waller.

She went to Walt Bowman, then athletic director, and asked to be released from her scholarship. Waller said she was thinking about transferring to Cal State Fullerton.

“I was either going to transfer or quit playing,” Waller said. “At the time, there was no way I was going to play for Chapman again.”

But Bowman, now an associate athletic director at Fullerton, asked Waller to wait until the new coach was hired before making her decision.

Cahill was hired in March. She was already familiar with the team, as she had practiced with them at times the previous year.

“The only thing I remembered about her was she once said our practices were easy,” Waller said. “That really worried me.”

But Waller found Cahill’s practices to be much different from Read’s. There was less running and less pressure.

Cahill also changed the offense to get Waller more involved.

“I really never thought much of Debi last season,” Cahill said, “but I didn’t see her play that much. During the summer, I realized she could be an impact player.”

The Panthers, especially Waller, have prospered under Cahill.

The team was unranked at the start of the season but broke into the top 20 after winning the LaVerne tournament title. Since then, the Panthers have steadily moved up.

They have lost only to Sacramento State, which is ranked second in the nation, and Westmont. Both losses were early in the season.

The Panthers rely on balance. Waller leads the team with 201 kills, but three others have more than 150 each.

“We really don’t have one standout player, but six,” Cahill said. “Debi plays the right side and is probably the best in the conference at pounding the ball from that side.”

Last week, Waller had 18 kills to lead Chapman to a victory over seventh-ranked Northridge and give the Panthers a 2-0 record in the CCAA.

It was the first time in 10 years that Chapman has defeated Northridge.

The Panthers have had success on the national level as well. They won the U.S. Military Academy tournament, which featured several top teams, at West Point.

After winning the tournament, the Panthers jumped into the top 10. The tests just keep on coming, but Waller said the team has been looking forward to the Riverside match for more than two weeks.

“The way we’re playing, we can beat anybody,” Waller said. “Even Riverside.”