Still a Hit : Pepperdine Continues to Benefit From the Exposure Gained Last Season in Winning the NCAA Baseball Championship

Pepperdine’s Mark Wasikowski had always been told he could not buy respect, but he discovered last summer that he could find elements of it for sale in a department store.

Still basking in the glow of the Waves’ first NCAA baseball championship, Wasikowski was shopping in Cypress when he came upon a large mannequin in the men’s sportswear department. USC, UCLA, and Nevada Las Vegas garments flanked a display that featured as its centerpiece a T-shirt celebrating Pepperdine’s national title.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Wasikowski, a third baseman from Seal Beach. “We just didn’t expect that winning the championship would create that kind of attention. But seeing that shirt in that store kind of gave us the credit we were looking for.”

Wasikowski was back at Eddy D. Field Stadium in Malibu last week as Pepperdine opened four weeks of fall practice. The Waves began preparations for their Jan. 30 opener against Cal Poly Pomona with new national respect and great expectations, not to mention an almost entirely new team.

Eight players who helped the Waves to a 48-11-1 record last season signed professional contracts, including right-hander Derek Wallace, who was the Chicago Cubs’ No. 1 draft pick; All-American right-hander Patrick Ahearne, relief ace Steve Montgomery, left-hander Jerry Aschoff, right-hander Jeff Myers, first baseman Dan Melendez, second baseman Steve Rodriguez and outfielder Chris Sheff.

“I’m not worried about a letdown,” said Pepperdine Coach Andy Lopez, who won several national coach-of-the-year awards. “I’m worried about young guys thinking they have to come in and win a national title to live up to what the guys they’re replacing did last year.

“I told our players that we’re not defending a national championship, we’re going to try and win one.”

Pepperdine received no direct financial reward for winning the championship last June. Up until 1990, NCAA schools earned money for advancing through each stage of the playoffs. Georgia, for example, earned about $50,000 after expenses when it won the national baseball title in 1990. Today, though, every Division I school receives at least $25,000 as part of the NCAA’s academic-enhancement program, derived from profits that come from all postseason play, including the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

Despite the absence of a huge payday, Wayne Wright, Pepperdine’s athletic director, said the school won more than a title when the Waves defeated Cal State Fullerton, 3-2, before a sellout crowd at Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha and a national television audience. The eight-team double-elimination format of the College World Series kept Pepperdine’s name in the national news for 10 days, and the Waves played on network television twice.

“To be on national television provided massive name recognition for the institution,” Wright said. “It’s something you can’t measure in terms of direct benefits.”

Which is not to say that there haven’t been some.

Lopez has spoken in Oregon, Nevada, Virginia and Mexico and throughout California. In January, he will address a national coaches’ convention in Atlanta. The subject: Molding a championship program.

“I’ve been away from my family more than I would have liked the last few months,” said Lopez, who is preparing for his fifth season as coach of the Waves. “And for the first time in my professional life, I had to learn to say no to people. But now it should be getting back to normal. I’m back to changing diapers at my house.”

As a result of winning the national championship, Lopez secured equipment, bat and shoe contracts for the Waves. His three summer baseball camps sold out, drawing more than 300 players, whose parents paid between $285 to $365 for one-week sessions.

Pepperdine also ran its success into an invitation to next season’s Olive Garden tournament in Florida, a series in 1994 at Texas and a series in 1995 at Florida State. North Carolina and Wichita State have also made overtures.

“Prior to winning the national title, we were rejected more than accepted,” Lopez said. “Now, we’ve had to turn some invitations down because we couldn’t accommodate them with our schedule. We would have been forced to break some longstanding local series.”

The recognition has also had an impact on recruiting. No longer, as he had to do when Rodriguez was a high school senior in Nevada, must Lopez explain to recruits that Malibu is in California.

“We get calls now from throughout the country from coaches and other people who say, ‘I have a player here you need to see,’ ” Lopez said. “It’s nice not having to spend 10 minutes on the phone with a recruit trying to explain who you are and why they should visit.”

Winning the title, however, also raised suspicions among some that Pepperdine, a small private school, put together its championship team with the help of some creative financial-aid arrangements. Last season, NCAA rules allowed 13 full scholarships. Full scholarships at Pepperdine are worth about $22,850 per year. Lopez said that Wallace and Melendez were the only players getting full grants last season. The 11 other scholarships were split among 20-25 others.

“I’ve heard the talk and, to be honest, it doesn’t bother me because we were within the rules,” Lopez said. “No one said anything when we missed the playoffs when Melendez, Wallace and Rodriguez and other guys were sophomores, or when we lost in the regionals in 1991 with the same guys.

“You have to expect that some people are going to think you did something illegal if you win it all. It goes with the territory.”

Texas in 1949-50, USC in 1970-74, and Stanford in 1987-88 are the only schools that have won consecutive national championships. Lopez said repeating as national champion will be difficult for the Waves because so many experienced players are gone. In addition, the NCAA has dropped scholarships from 13 to 11.7.

Cal State Fullerton Coach Augie Garrido, who won the first of the Titans’ two national championships in 1979, said Lopez might find the coming season a little less enjoyable.

“The season that came after we won the first championship was difficult to manage,” Garrido said. “We had some key players back, but the team did not play up to its full potential. It seemed like we played a lot of games trying to show people our national championship rings instead of executing.

“It might be better that Andy has a lot of key players gone because that opens the door for new people to step forward.”

Wasikowski, who batted .311 last season, said the Waves plan to return to Rosenblatt Stadium at the end of May. Pitcher Steve Duda, shortstop Eric Ekdahl, catcher Scott Vollmer, and outfielders Matt McElreath and Keven Dell’Amico are returning starters.

“In the past, people would say, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to go to Omaha?’ and everyone would say, ‘Yeah, that would be great,’ ” Wasikowski said.

“Our experience last season changed the way we went about things over the summer. Our whole goal, no matter where we were playing, was to get ready for our season at Pepperdine and get back to Omaha.”