A program in mourning

It has been nearly two months since a fatal accident involving four UC Riverside basketball players and two of their friends, but the tragedy of that night is still raw.

Which is one reason why Riverside Coach David Spencer won’t be with his team tonight in Ames, Iowa.

Last Friday, a little more than a month after he was inconsolable at an on-campus memorial service and exactly a week before his team’s opener at Iowa State, Spencer announced he was taking a medical leave of absence.

“Coach has been in a bad way since that service,” said Vonn Webb, an assistant who has taken over as interim head coach.

Spencer’s pain can be traced to the early-morning hours of Sept. 16, when one of his players was killed and three were injured in a car accident on Highway 60, not far from campus.

Riverside players Mark Hall, Aaron Scott, B.J. Visman and Michael Creppy had been joined by dorm resident advisors Latosha Wallace and Lacey Harris for a night of bowling.

Afterward, they all climbed into Hall’s SUV. According to the California Highway Patrol accident report, Wallace was in the front seat with driver Hall, her friend from high school, when the vehicle struck a car that was stalled in the center of the freeway.

The SUV flipped six times, according to police, and Hall and Wallace, neither of them wearing seat belts, were killed.

Spencer, in an interview before his medical leave, said he never felt more helpless.

“You had a family that lost a son, another family that lost a daughter,” he said. “You hear bad things about college athletes, but these were four kids who wanted a chance. They went out for a night of fun. They went bowling. I have asked myself several times, ‘Why did this happen?’ ”

Spencer, 57, called Visman’s reaction at the scene “heroic.”

Visman, who was wearing his seat belt, was suspended upside down.

“He pulled his teammates out of the car,” Spencer said. “What else can you say?”

Visman scored 11 points and grabbed 11 rebounds off the bench in the Highlanders’ exhibition victory over Cal State Dominguez Hills last week, but his wrist was injured in the accident and may require surgery before the season is over.

Scott suffered a broken ankle and jaw and will sit out the season. Creppy has a foot injury, and although he is practicing he may not see game action this season.

At the time of the accident, none of them had donned a Riverside game uniform. They were among 11 new players second-year coach Spencer had recruited after a 5-23 rookie season.

“We came from all over,” said Scott, a 6-foot-4 guard from Brentwood High and College of the Sequoias, “and some of us didn’t have a lot of Division I offers. But there was a real determination with us.”

The coach was determined too. Spencer is something of a free spirit, a native of Wilmington, Del., who majored in history and minored in English and sociology, and who began his coaching career by guiding the Chilean national team while serving in the Peace Corps.

After a coaching career spanning more than three decades, Riverside was his first opportunity to run his own program.

His style of play had captivated his roster full of newcomers. His teams played up-tempo every second -- full-court defense, run and gun on offense.

“It’s Division I,” Visman said, “and it was going to be fun.”

Spencer had seen such a system work before.

One of his coaching stops had been at USC, where he was on the basketball staff of Stan Morrison, now Riverside’s athletic director. There, he was instrumental in recruiting Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble.

Though Gathers and Kimble transferred to Loyola Marymount when Morrison and Spencer were fired after the 1989 season, Spencer kept in touch and was at the 1990 game when Gathers collapsed.

Recalling that time two weeks ago, Spencer had to stop talking and choke back tears as he reflected on Gathers’ death from a heart condition.

“I never thought I’d go through that again,” Spencer said. “And then I got the call about Mark.”

Those closest to him weren’t shocked last week when the coach decided to take a break. Spencer had suffered from several illnesses and family tragedies during the past year.

“He had a bad virus,” Webb said. “He got an inner-ear infection and vertigo. His back was a problem.”

There was also the death of his father and recent health problems of his mother.

“His parents had been married 63 years,” Morrison said. “There has been great pain with that.”

Webb, 43, said, “Things have been very hard for Coach, physically and mentally. Yet, on the day it happened, Coach told me that he had faith in me, and that while it wasn’t the greatest way for it to happen, I needed to seize this chance to be a Division I coach.”

Last season, Spencer missed three games because of an inner-ear infection and briefly relied on a cane because of his back problems.

When Morrison had fired popular longtime coach John Masi after the 2004-2005 season, he had turned to Spencer, who was the team academic coordinator and who had been out of coaching for four years. It was a controversial decision, and critics said Morrison had sacrificed Masi to reward a friend.

“The thing about Coach Spencer,” Webb said, “is that he’s a basketball lifer. He knows the game and he loves the game. But the game has taken a lot out of him too. This is hard for him and for us.”

Webb recalled that while his condominium was being built, Spencer had opened his own home to him. “That tells you something great about the man,” Webb said. “I’m just holding the space for Coach.

“He’ll be back.”

diane.pucin@latimes.com