JANELLE STRAWSBURG
Staff Writer
Rick Rowland
He has taught at Pepperdine longer than most students have been alive. He has guided, coached and mentored thousands of young people. At the end of this semester, Pepperdine will lose a man many consider a local legend. After 30 years as a Pepperdine professor, Rick Rowland will retire from teaching.
“I’ve been in education since 1957,” Rowland said. “I still love and enjoy teaching. However, I recently moved to Corona to a retirement community to be closer to my kids and grandkids, and that drive is a little tough.
“I will be 71 in March, and I’d like to go out while I’m still healthy, and able to play tennis, swim and maybe take up golfing,” Rowland added.
William Fredrick “Rick” Rowland was originally called Fred when he attended Pepperdine his freshman year. However, after a transfer to Cal State Fullerton for swimming his sophomore year, and a practical joke, the name “Rick” stuck.
“I had been elected cheerleader at Pepperdine, and when some of my friends heard this my sophomore year at Fullerton, they decided to enter me into the tryouts,” Rowland said. “As a joke, I had told them that I didn’t like the name Fred because people would always call me Freddy, and that I preferred Rick. Well unbeknown to me, that’s what they entered me into the tryouts as, so they called me up as Rick, and I won, and the name has stuck ever since.”
Rowland was not only a cheerleader, but also a four-sport athlete in swimming, water polo, basketball and tennis, lettering varsity at Pepperdine. After being offered a full scholarship to Oklahoma University, Rowland left Fullerton to go swim for the Sooners.
Rowland was not only conference champ in his freestyle event but also earned two letters for swimming. He went on to get a doctorate in ministry in 1990 from the California Graduate School of Theology. However, his water polo career started in 1954, when he worked summers as a lifeguard for Zuma beach.
“The lifeguards all played in a water polo league at the Coliseum so that was when I first started playing,” Rowland said.
After starting the first swim program at Norman High School in Oklahoma, Rowland then went on to teach and coach at Garden Grove High School and Santa Ana College in California.
Rowland then went on to teach and coach at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1965, and was the first person ever granted tenure in the Physical Activities Department. However, it wasn’t necessarily his coaching that Rowland said was his greatest achievement at UCSB. It was the starting of the first campus ministries in California at that campus.
During his first year at UCSB, Rowland was sharply confronted with the death of the manager of his swim team, a female student named Peggy. Peggy had attended a party in Isla Vista, the “sin city” of UCSB where all the students lived. Rowland said she had gotten drunk, and was vomiting over a cliff outside of her dorm when she fell over and into the ocean.
“I felt very distressed because I knew Peggy’s salvation had rested on my shoulders,” Rowland said. “I knew nothing about her religious life, so I felt very guilty. While I was a good example, I was keeping my Christianity inside the church building.”
“So I went and talked to the minister about starting a campus ministry,” Rowland a member of the Church of Christ continued. “‘Bible Chairs’ were illegal in California, so we started a legal club: UCSB Campus Advance for Christ. It was the first for the Church of Christ on the West Coast.”
Bible Chairs are departments sponsored by universities.
In 1975, Pepperdine pursued Rowland to become its head water polo and swim coach. Rowland was at first hesitant to take the job because of the growing campus ministry at UCSB.
“I didn’t want to originally take the job because of my involvement with campus ministries at UCSB,” he said. “I told them the only way I would take the job and could justify it would be if we could train campus ministers at Pepperdine.”
Pepperdine agreed, so in 1975 Rowland began his career at Pepperdine. He coached both the men’s water polo and swim teams, and taught as an associate professor of speech communication and an adjunct professor of religion in Campus Ministry.
In his first year at Pepperdine, Rowland began the “Athletes and Friends” Bible study. It was the first official Bible study at Pepperdine, with its goal to present Christ in a relative way on the college campus, to strengthen and nurture its Christian students and evangelize to non-Christians.
“My favorite memory at Pepperdine would be seeing the response of students who were interested in studying the Bible in a relative way in that Athletes and Friend’s Bible study,” he said. “For some it improved their lives, for others they became Christians. Seeing that this campus could have a campus ministry program, to look at the lives that have been touched for Christ and his church, that is my fondest memory.”
Rowland revolutionized the idea of campus ministry in California, Campus Minister Scott Lambert said. Not only has he successfully started programs at Pepperdine and UCSB, but also at UCLA, University of Southern California, Cal State Northridge, Cal State Long Beach and others.
Lambert, who calls Rowland his own personal mentor, describes Rowland as “the father of campus ministry.”
“Thousands upon thousands of students have been impacted and changed because Rick had a vision to see something that didn’t exist,” Lambert said.
Rowland not only had a huge impact on the Christian atmosphere at Pepperdine, but also on its swim and water polo programs. He has coached six Olympians and nine All-Americans at Pepperdine, including Terry Schroeder who was the 1977, 1978 and 1980 NCAA leading scorer for water polo. Schroeder is now the water polo coach.
Pepperdine was ranked in the final NCAA “Top 10” at the end of every water polo season under Rowland. Also in 1984, Pepperdine had its highest finish in the NCAA Division 1 Championship swim meet 19th under Rowland.
His cumulative Pepperdine record for water polo and swimming is 254 wins, 164 losses and three ties. His cumulative lifetime record is 709 wins, 289 losses and four ties. Rowland has also coached more than 100 All-Americans in his coaching career.
However, even though Rowland is retiring from teaching, his coaching days might not be over.
“My son Rick, a former water polo and swim assistant to me, is head swim and water polo coach at Cal Baptist,” he said. “I may do some volunteer coaching with my son if things go well.”
Despite his impressive coaching record, Rowland said he has Christ as the focus of his career at Pepperdine.
“My No. 1 life goal is to serve Christ,” he said. “I wanted to start a campus ministry here, to train campus ministers, and to see students have at least the opportunity to follow Christ or reject him.”
Rowland has seen Pepperdine from practically every point of view: as a student, as a professor, from the L.A. to the Malibu campus. And he feels that Pepperdine has changed for the better in his 30 years here.
“It is a much stronger Christian school than it was when I arrived, especially at Seaver College,” Rowland said. “I would like to see the graduate schools improve at a much faster pace though. It is a difficult road to walk, being both a strong academic and Christian institution.”
For those who have worked with Rowland, his influences will last a lifetime.
“When I think of Rick, I realize the chain of leadership is linked from generation to generation,” Lambert said. “Today’s students may not know Rick, but if they have any interest in spiritual life at Pepperdine they owe Rick a great debt. He fought for the spiritual vibrancy Pepperdine has today.”
03-31-2005
