UCI Men’s Volleyball Coach Quits

UC Irvine lost one more member of its athletic department Friday when men’s volleyball Coach Bill Ashen handed his resignation to acting athletic director Barbara Camp.

Ashen built the Irvine program from the club level, starting in 1986, and moved it into Division I competition in 1988. His teams had a record of 32-94 during his five seasons as coach of the Division I program.

His resignation was accompanied by the news that his wife, Jean Ashen, a former Irvine women’s basketball assistant coach who works in the campus recreation department, is taking a job teaching and coaching the girls’ volleyball team at her alma mater, North Salinas High School in Salinas. The couple are expecting their first child.

“This is something for when we have kids,” Jean Ashen said. “We wanted to be close to my parents. It didn’t have anything to do with the finances at UCI.”

Bill Ashen’s position as coach of the men’s volleyball team officially was only a part-time job, and the program was put on self-supporting status last year, making the coach and team responsible for raising operating funds. He has supplemented his personal income by working as a house painter.

In Salinas, he will work as a volunteer, assisting his wife.

His departure is the latest in a long list of changes in the athletic department, and word of it came four days after Tom Ford announced he is resigning as athletic director to become assistant executive director of the National Assn. of Basketball Coaches.

Since January, 1991, Irvine has lost a number of athletic staff members, including some who had been at the school a decade or more. Others who have left under varying circumstances include men’s basketball coach Bill Mulligan, women’s basketball coach Dean Andrea, baseball coach Mike Gerakos, tennis coach Greg Patton, assistant athletic director Mike Tracey and Ford.

Irvine’s record in Ashen’s final season was 5-19, and 2-14 in the Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn., the toughest conference in the nation.

Ashen previously coached at Laguna Beach High School for seven years, guiding the Artists to three Southern Section 4-A championships and a 69-match winning streak from 1981-83.

Supporters of men’s track and cross-country, who once faced a firm deadline of Aug. 3 to raise $70,000 to reinstate the programs for next year, secured an extension to Aug. 21 during a meeting with university officials Friday, Camp said.

Because of budget problems, the programs were slated for elimination in May along with the baseball program. Horace Mitchell, vice chancellor for student affairs, told angry boosters at a June meeting that he would allow them the opportunity to raise the money to fund the program.

The figure of $70,000, also emphasized as a firm requirement in a June press release, apparently will be revised as well after a Friday meeting with Mitchell.

“We’ve been trying to negotiate the numbers,” said Camp, whose tenure as acting director officially begins Aug. 1. She estimates the new goal will be in the $55,000-$60,000 range.