Local Tennis Coaches Play Some Musical Chairs

Pepperdine, UCLA and USC are involved in a game of tennis-coach swapping.

At the end of the season, Pepperdine’s men’s coach, Allen Fox, is retiring to pursue other interests. Glenn Bassett, former UCLA coach, is expected to replace him. And Pepperdine assistant Richard Gallien will take over as women’s coach at USC.

Fox, 56, is 362-106 in 17 seasons as Pepperdine’s coach. His teams have reached the NCAA tournament 14 times and have finished among the top 10 in the final rankings 14 times. And Fox is going out in style. The Waves are ranked fourth in the country and have a 22-2 record.

“I have a lot of time ingrained in this place,” Fox said. “Thank heaven we have Glenn Bassett, we couldn’t get anyone better than that.”

Fox, who has a doctorate in psychology, has written two books about tennis, and has many business interests.

Gallien, who has spent 11 years as a player, assistant coach and co-head coach at Pepperdine, said Fox has given him uncommon insight into coaching.

“It’s like learning the car business from Lee Iacocca,” Gallien said.

Bassett, 67, was an assistant to UCLA coach J.D. Morgan when Fox led UCLA to the 1960 and 1961 NCAA team titles. Bassett was nudged out as UCLA coach in 1993 after 27 years, during which he led the Bruins to seven national championships. He has been assisting Fox the last two years.

Although Pepperdine has not announced that Bassett will take over, Bassett and Fox both said that it is a possibility.

Gallien might have been in line for the Pepperdine position, but he denied that Bassett’s impending take-over influenced his decision to leave.

“I took the USC job entirely because of the merit of the case,” he said. “I decided that this was the right time for me to make a move, without any thoughts of who is going to end up where.”

The USC position was left vacant when six-year coach Cheryl Woods resigned last year to pursue other interests. Ed Burt has served as interim coach.

Gallien has never coached a women’s team but said there are advantages to it. The NCAA allows women’s teams eight scholarships, for instance, 3 1/2 more than men’s teams. And the gender-equity issue has created stability among women’s teams, whereas non-revenue men’s teams are in increasing danger of being eliminated.

Gallien hopes to restore USC to its former glory. The Trojans won six national titles from 1977-1985 under Coach Dave Borelli.

“It has tremendous history and heritage and I think it could really be at the top within the next few years,” Gallien said.

Notes

Tom Hoff has put the Long Beach State men’s volleyball team back on the map. Since 1991, when the 49ers won the NCAA title, they have slowly fallen. They finished 13-15 last season. But Hoff, a 6-foot-8 junior middle blocker who transferred from Ohio State and sat out last season, has turned the program around. After Long Beach had lost to No. 2 Hawaii (13-4) on Thursday, Hoff couldn’t sleep and spent most of Friday phoning his teammates to talk about the rematch. With Hoff making 33 kills, the sixth-ranked 49ers then upset the Rainbows in three games. . . . Hoff will lead Long Beach (15-7) into the four-team UCLA tournament this weekend in Pauley Pavilion. Long Beach will play No. 10 USC (8-9) Friday at 5 p.m.; top-ranked UCLA (20-1) will follow against No. 8 Cal State Northridge (14-7). The final will be played Saturday at 7 p.m.

The second-ranked UCLA softball team, 24-2 overall, 9-1 in Pacific 10 play, will play host to top-ranked Arizona (38-1, 5-1) in a conference doubleheader on Saturday at the Easton Softball Stadium at 1 p.m. Watch for a junior pitcher named Tanya Harding (3-0), who joined UCLA at the beginning of the academic spring quarter from the Australian national team. In her three victories are two shutouts and a perfect game. She has also hit two home runs and is batting .631.

The Loyola Marymount women’s tennis team (19-6) is having its second-best season in school history. In 1987 it finished 22-12. The young Lions have three freshmen in their starting lineup, Lia Bunker (23-8), Mara Colaizzi (26-5) and Amy Labetich (24-10). Loyola Marymount’s top player, Anna Zaricki (22-8), is a sophomore transfer from Hawaii.