New Job Grows on Holland : Ex-Titan Coach Settles In at USD

“Isn’t this ugly?” Brad Holland says and laughs, calling attention to the ungainly black car he was given after becoming University of San Diego basketball coach last September.

“They told me it was a Crown Victoria, but they didn’t tell me it was an ’89. The only good thing is that all I have to do is put gas in it.”

It only goes to show that when you go looking for greener pastures, they could end up being a little brown around the edges.

Holland has offered to drive to lunch and he steers the butt of his joke along the curling campus roads, chatting almost giddily. He is much more relaxed, and far less defensive than during the months after his second team at Cal State Fullerton finished an 8-19 season.

Then, he was wondering what the future might hold after the man who hired him, Bill Shumard, had fallen out of favor with the university administration and resigned as athletic director.

Holland didn’t leave Fullerton so he could ride around in style. But, when he did leave, he turned over the keys to a new white Blazer to Bob Hawking, his assistant who replaced him. “That was a nice car,” he says, still only half joking.

That might have been one of the few things Holland liked about being Fullerton coach. He certainly didn’t like all that losing in his last season, and he didn’t like doing it in a gymnasium that is far more outdated, compared to where other Big West Conference teams play, than the car he’s driving now.

Holland was seeking what he has described frequently as “a more level playing field.” He says he has found that, even if there are a few speed bumps along the road.

San Diego, a private Catholic school of 3,900 undergraduate and 2,200 graduate students, plays in the West Coast Conference against such competition as Loyola Marymount and Pepperdine. The attractive campus sits on 180 rolling acres near a jagged canyon in Alcala Park. The 18 major buildings designed in an ornamental 16th Century Spanish Renaissance style give it a look that is California-quaint.

Students pay as much as $22,000 a year to attend if they have no scholarship help and live on campus. They move from one class to another in brightly painted blue and white mini-buses. More than half the undergraduates, and 90% of the freshmen, live in campus dorms.

“It’s a nice atmosphere,” Holland said. “We feel like if we get a kid on campus, we have a chance to sign him.”

Holland is accustomed to being around success, first at La Crescenta Crescenta Valley High, then at UCLA as a player and assistant coach. He also was a rookie reserve on the Lakers’ 1980 NBA championship team.

“When you have a losing year and you’re so competitive it works on you,” he said. “A lot of people don’t understand. But that’s what we do. We’re paid to win games. When you’re losing games, everything seems to be a lowlight.”

Holland is trying to keep in mind the advice John Wooden once gave him.

“He said he was able to get to the point where he could feel the same about himself after a loss as he did after a victory,” Holland said, “and I’m trying to do that more now.”

At Fullerton, Holland had trouble dealing with the factors beyond his control: primarily a budget he believed was inadequate and a playing facility he knew was outdated.

It wasn’t long before he considered another position, even though his first team was a respectable 15-12. Nevada showed interest in him after that season, although the job went to former Houston coach Pat Foster.

Holland wanted the Pepperdine job that went to Tony Fuller, but instead he got the one at San Diego when Hank Egan left in September to become an assistant with the San Antonio Spurs.

“It’s been a challenge taking over a program this late,” Holland said. “I didn’t know the players, the other coaches, or the school. They had to get familiar with one person, while I had to get familiar with about 20. But everyone has been as open to me as they possibly could be.”

The team got off to a good start, including a victory over Notre Dame, but the Toreros also have struggled. They lost twice in their only games against Big West opposition, by three points at home against UC Irvine and by 25 points at Nevada. San Diego is 10-13, 5-7 in conference.

“I went from a team that was more athletic to one that had to play more methodical to be successful,” Holland said. “We’ve had a tough nonconference schedule and the WCC is a good conference. . . . I think a lot of us could compete well in a conference that is perceived to be much better.”

Several of his players say they are enjoying playing for Holland, even though the season hasn’t been as successful as last season, when San Diego was 18-11.

“It’s been a smooth transition,” junior guard David Fizdale said. “I think everyone accepted him right away, because it’s obvious that he really knows the game. His style is different from Coach Egan, who was more strict and yelled at you more, but they’re both good teachers of the game.

“I like the way he treats you like a man, and you feel like you can talk to him. He’s very receptive.”

Casey Sheahan, a sophomore reserve guard, agrees.

“It’s hard coming in and taking over a program where you didn’t recruit the players, but he’s a good guy and a good coach, and he’s done fine,” said Sheahan, who was a freshman at Fullerton in Holland’s first season there, but transferred to San Diego for reasons, he said, that were related to academics, not basketball.

Although everything hasn’t gone as well this season as Holland would have liked, he said he’s comfortable with what he believes can be accomplished down the road.

“I think I have a good chance here to build a program and win some games,” Holland said. “I’m impressed with the school. There’s a lot of pride here. People care about athletics and the integrity of athletics and academics. There are a lot of people who have been here a lot of years, and they don’t want to leave.”

The one recruiting drawback at San Diego is one he knew existed. The playing facility there also is small, seating only 2,000, although it doesn’t look as distressed as Titan Gym. But, unlike at Fullerton, there are plans drawn to build a facility at a cost of about $16 million. “It will take $8 million just to break ground, but I’m optimistic that it will happen,” he said.

A new president, Alice Hayes from St. Louis University, will take over in July, and nothing is likely to advance without her approval.

San Diego’s entrance requirements, which Holland says are more strict than some of the other WCC schools, also are a factor in recruiting. San Diego requires a 3.0 grade-point average and a 900 on the Scholastic Assessment Test for admission, although Holland says a higher score in one of the two can offset a slightly lower score in the other. The NCAA requires only a 2.0 GPA and 700 on the SAT.

“I’ve asked our assistants if they recruited a couple players I’ve seen at other conference schools, and they said, ‘Coach, they didn’t qualify here,’ ” Holland said.

Holland said he was seeking a stable situation for his wife and three children when he took the new job. They recently moved into a new house in Carlsbad, a 30-minute commute to the campus. During the 2 1/2 years he was at Fullerton, he drove from La Canada Flintridge.

“It was tough leaving our friends and family there, the church where my wife and I were married, things like that,” he said. “But it’s not like we’re not close enough to get back there now.”

He said his family already is feeling settled in Carlsbad.

“My wife wanted to live close to the ocean, and we’re only five minutes from the beach, so that’s good,” Holland said. “The twins started school there in January, and we’ve really been pleased about how smooth that transition was.”

Holland says he can look back on those two years at Fullerton with some good feelings. “I really liked the players there, and I felt so badly that morning about having to tell them I was leaving, and I’m very close to those coaches there and I still talk to them all the time,” Holland said. “There are a lot of people there I’m sure I’ll be in contact with the rest of my life.”

But Holland said he has no second thoughts.

“They gave me the chance to be a head coach, and I learned a tremendous amount in the two and a half years I was there,” he said. “It was an important step for me after being an assistant at UCLA for four years.”

Was he disappointed that the move wasn’t to Pepperdine?

“I’d be disappointed for anyone who wanted that job who didn’t get it,” Holland said. “I saw it as a most attractive job, and I think anyone in college coaching would think it was one of the most attractive jobs in the West. What they have more than anyone else in our conference is a tradition of winning.”

Unlike at Pepperdine, the head coach’s office at San Diego has no splendid view of the ocean, although farther up the hill you can see part of Mission Bay sparkling below. And San Diego has won only two conference championships. Pepperdine has 10.

But Holland can look out on a pleasant view of the Tecolote Canyon, lush and green in February, and feel he has a reasonably good chance to have a quality program.

And just thinking it’s possible is an important part of trying to do it.

Profile:

Brad Holland

Age: 37

Home: Carlsbad

Family: Wife, Leslie, and three children

Coaching background: Assistant to UCLA Coach Jim Harrick, 1988 to 1992; Cal State Fullerton head coach, 1992 to 1994; became University of San Diego coach last September.

Playing background: Basketball and football star at La Crescenta Crescenta Valley High; played basketball at UCLA, two seasons under Gene Bartow and two under Gary Cunningham, 1976-1979; averaged 17.5 points as a senior. Drafted by Lakers, 1979; 14th player taken in first round. Played 1981-82 season with Washington and Milwaukee before knee injury ended career.

Attitude: “When you have a losing year and you’re so competitive, it works on you. A lot of people don’t understand. But that’s what we do. We’re paid to win games. When you’re losing games, everything seems to be a lowlight.”