Pepperdine Women Count On ‘Ice’ Getting Hot

No one is looking forward to trying to break the Ice this season in the West Coast Conference.

That’s because “Ice,” whose full name is Iseth Cowan, has arrived at Pepperdine, where she is expected to lead the women’s basketball team back to prominence.

Cowan, a 6-foot-2 junior forward, was selected as California’s co-player of the year last season after leading Butte Junior College (30-4) to the semifinals of the state tournament.

“She was just an outstanding shot-blocker and rebounder,” Butte Coach Greg Sheley said. “Her best (asset) was her athleticism for her size. At least at the junior college level, you don’t see that very often.”

Cowan’s athleticism is not the only remarkable thing about her. Her unusual first name, Iseth (pronounced i-SETH ), also is a conversation piece.

She is named after Isabelle Elizabeth Munro, an actress who had appeared in several silent movies with Charlie Chaplin and was a friend of Cowan’s mother. Munro, who died in 1967, condensed her first and middle names to Iseth for the stage.

Cowan’s nickname on the basketball court, Ice, is a derivative of that.

Although Cowan was destined for the hardwood rather than the silver screen, her initial basketball forays were inauspicious.

Cowan played for two weeks in the seventh grade at a private junior high in her hometown of Ukiah. However, her basketball career was interrupted when the school’s head nun decided that Cowan would be better off concentrating on her studies.

At Ukiah High, the girls’ basketball coach noticed Cowan because she was tall, and asked her to try out for the team.

“I had just gone through a major growth spurt,” Cowan said. “I was really long and lanky and I wasn’t used to controlling my body yet. Dribbling the ball and shooting were (skills) I couldn’t do.”

She played on the junior varsity that year but soon gained mastery over her long limbs and became a leader on the varsity. She was an all-North Bay League selection in her junior and senior years and was recruited by several colleges, including Cal State Fullerton and Fresno State.

But because Cowan was young for her grade--she had skipped the second grade and was only 17 when she graduated from Ukiah--her mother decided that she was not mature enough to balance the pressure of basketball and academics at a four-year college.

So, Butte gained an NCAA Division I-caliber player and vaulted to the top of the Golden Valley Conference. Cowan was a two-time all-conference selection and last season set school single-season records with 672 points and 361 rebounds.

Cowan credits Sheley with helping her develop skills uncommon to a player of her size.

“He just gave me a lot of freedom and that gave me confidence to expand as player,” she said.

Virtually every West Coast Conference school, as well as several Pacific 10 Conference schools, recruited Cowan before this season. She chose Pepperdine for its location--”It was not in the hustle and bustle of L.A.”--and for its enthusiastic new coach, Mark Trakh.

Pepperdine was mostly a middle-of-the-pack team in the conference from 1983 through ’93 under then-coach Ron Fortner, who ended his Pepperdine career 131-153 (.461). Trakh, who led the Brea-Olinda High girls’ team to four state championships from 1986 through ‘93, brought new vitality to the Wave program last season.

“He pushes you as far as he thinks you can go,” Cowan said.

Cowan will try to help Trakh improve on his first season at Pepperdine, when the Waves finished 13-13 overall and tied for fifth place in the conference at 6-8.

If Cowan keeps up her early pace this season--she is averaging a team-leading 11 points a game--the Waves (4-2) could contend for their first conference title.

Call it the Ice Age.

*

If Ed Burt is anywhere near as good a coach as his mentor, the USC women’s tennis team can expect a successful season.

Burt, who was given an interim coaching position earlier this month after Cheryl Woods resigned, said Dick Gould is the person who has most influenced him. Gould has led the Stanford men’s tennis team to 12 national championships since 1973.

Burt began coaching in a recreation program that Gould ran at Stanford years ago.

“(Gould) has worked with me a great deal in understanding that you have to adapt to players and. . . communicate with players on a high level,” Gould said. “I definitely would like to follow suit with the type of program he has developed.”

Burt was coach of the Cal State Fullerton men’s team in 1982-84. More recently, he has been running his own sports training business, and served as an assistant for the UC Irvine men’s team last season before being named assistant women’s coach at USC in the fall.

USC won NCAA titles in 1983 and ’85 under then-coach Dave Borelli, but had slipped under Woods, whose record was 76-67 (.531) in six years.

If Burt can return USC to national prominence, it probably will help his chances of being given the permanent position when USC associate athletic director Lisa Love makes her search after this season.

Burt has inherited a Trojan roster with high potential. It includes highly touted freshmen Nicole London and Pam Trump, as well as returning seniors Maggie Simkova, Suzanne Italiano and Petra Schmitt.

USC will compete in the National Collegiate Tennis Classic at Palm Springs Jan. 7-9.