John Impelman is the Wooden connection at Pepperdine

As a high school senior, John Impelman followed a long line of family members and applied to UCLA.

Wishing to be accepted on his own merit, he sent the same materials as any other applicant: no special recommendations, no emails to the chancellor and, certainly, no mention of his grandmother’s maiden name.

And that is how the great-grandson of John Wooden got rejected by UCLA.

Impelman ended up at Occidental, where he played basketball. He now can laugh about his failed application.

“People were like, ‘Why didn’t you just tell them?’” he recalled. “Because then they would’ve treated me differently, you know?”

Colleagues and family members were not surprised. Impelman, they say, is proud but modest and fiercely independent. Eventually, those qualities led him into the family business.

After Occidental, he has climbed the ranks at Pepperdine, first as a graduate assistant, then director of basketball operations, before a promotion to assistant coach. Along the way, he neglected to tell his bosses that their new coach was a direct descendant of perhaps the greatest of all time.

This season, he is helping mold a team that was picked to finish third in the West Coast Conference, behind Gonzaga and Brigham Young. On Thursday, when UCLA hosts Pepperdine at Pauley Pavilion, he will make history as the first member of Wooden’s family to face the Bruins.

For the family, it presents a dilemma: Which side will they root for?

“Well,” Impelman said, drumming on his desk with his fingers, “that will be a good question.”

As a child, Impelman adored his great-grandfather, but their basketball interactions were brief. According to family lore, Wooden once gave another great-grandson some shooting tips.

“I know what I’m doing, Paw Paw,” Wooden was told.

“I think that’s the only time Daddy ever made any suggestions to the boys,” said Wooden’s daughter, Nan, Impelman’s grandmother.

Each Christmas, after Wooden had finished preparing his signature dish, a Waldorf salad, Impelman would watch NBA games with him. Wooden did not offer many critiques, though Impelman learned that when Wooden said a coach was “a nice young man,” he didn’t think much of his ability.

Wooden found that even when he did offer advice the kids wouldn’t listen.

When Wooden spoke at basketball camps, “I’d be the one talking to other kids,” Impelman said. “I was like, ‘I’ve heard this before.’”

Impelman absorbed Wooden’s lessons through his father, Craig, who said, “Almost everything of value, the way I look at the world and the way I look at coaching, I learned from Coach Wooden.”

Craig Impelman was a UCLA devotee. He applied to only one school because he wanted to see Wooden’s methods firsthand. Cut from the UCLA freshman team, he lobbied Wooden, unsuccessfully, for a chance at the varsity.

Later, he became a UCLA assistant coach and met a young woman, Christy, who seemed to embody the best of Wooden’s values. It made sense: She was Wooden’s granddaughter. She became Craig Impelman’s wife.

Today, Craig Impelman is considered an authority on all things Wooden. His weekly newsletter, Wooden’s Wisdom, dispatches Wooden’s lore to 10,000 subscribers.

When Craig’s son was born, there could only be one name: John. The middle name, Lawrence, is after another former UCLA coach, Larry Farmer, who is also Impelman’s godfather. His godmother is Kathy Meyers, the sister of late UCLA star Dave Meyers.

John Impelman thinks of Wooden each time he signs his name. As child, he would sit with Wooden in the den of the coach’s Encino home and help with stacks of fan mail. He noticed the pride Wooden put into his signature, giving the same care to the last as he’d given the first. The penmanship was impeccable.

“So I catch myself when I’m signing a receipt or something somewhere, I’m like, ‘God, he would not be happy,’” Impelman said.

Impelman was not pressured to play basketball, “which is probably why I ended up playing Division III,” he joked.

Once, when John Impelman was warming the bench at Occidental, Craig learned that Wooden was going to attend a crucial game late in the season. He called Impelman’s coach, Brian Newhall.

“Under no circumstances are you to put John in that game just because his great-grandfather happens to be at the game,” he said.

The coach agreed. But midway through the second half, in a one-point game, Impelman was sent in anyway.

“You thought I was going to have John Wooden at the game and not put his great-grandson in?” Newhall told Craig.

Impelman knew his great-grandfather meant a great deal to a great many people, but it took a while to grasp just how much. When Wooden was in his last days, John Impelman got a chance to say his goodbyes. He received the news of his great-grandfather’s death while headed to a Dodgers game.

“I can’t remember what inning it was, but Vin Scully got on the loudspeaker at Dodger Stadium,” Impelman said. “They put a feature up, ‘John Wooden, at the age of 99, has passed away.’”

Everyone stood. A stadium mourned.

Impelman doesn’t flaunt his connection to Wooden, and many of the players he coaches didn’t find out until they were in the Pepperdine program for a couple of years. Marty Wilson, Pepperdine’s head coach, has found the easiest way to embarrass Impelman is to tell people about his great-grandfather.

“Even when I was getting recruited, I didn’t have any idea,” said Jeremy Major, a junior guard.

In his office, Impelman allows one photo of the man he knew as Paw Paw. No larger than a postcard, it is tucked on a low shelf.

Wooden is wearing short shorts and high white socks. Impelman is very young, and they are sitting alone in the bleachers at a basketball court, the old basketball coach looking warmly at a future basketball coach.

UCLA vs. PEPPERDINE

When: 7:30 p.m., Thursday.

Where: Pauley Pavilion.

On the air: TV: Pac-12 Networks; Radio: 570.

Update: UCLA struggled while splitting its first two games against Monmouth and Cal Poly. The Maui Invitational looms next week, but one obstacle remains: Pepperdine. The Waves, also 1-1, return all five starters from last season, including senior forward Stacy Davis, who is averaging 14.5 points a game.

Follow Zach Helfand on Twitter: @zhelfand