Tanner Gardner gives a speech at the Brock House on Aug. 13. Gardner is now in his fourth semester as Pepperdine’s Director of Athletics. Photo courtesy of Tanner Gardner.
Pepperdine Athletics’ 2025 fall season saw successful finishes across multiple sports. Women’s Soccer won a second consecutive WCC title, Men’s Water Polo finished No. 9 in final national rankings, Cross Country competed in the NCAA Division I Regional Cross Country National Championships and Scott Wong, Women’s Indoor Volleyball head coach, earned his 200th win with Pepperdine.
On top of the on-field success, student-athletes accomplished new heights in the classroom. Director of Athletics Tanner Gardner wrote in an email to the Pepperdine community he’s proud to share Athletics achieving the highest semester GPA in departmental history— a 3.39 grade point average during the fall semester.
“It’s a real point of pride that we had a record-high GPA this last semester because if we were just excelling in the competition, to me that would be unsatisfying,” Gardner said. “If we were just excelling in academics, that would be unsatisfying, and frankly, if we’re just excelling in those two but not in really into living our Christian values, it would be unsatisfying.”
In his email, Gardner wrote nearly 80% of the school’s student-athletes held a minimum of a 3.0 GPA and that almost half had achieved a minimum of a 3.5 GPA.
Jordan Holm, assistant director of academics for Athletics, said prior to 2014, the department has records but doesn’t have the compilation of everything the way they do now. However, Holm pointed out it is “far and away” from what anything has been in those past years.
Emily Garrison, Women’s Swim and Dive Fly/IM swimmer and junior International Business major, said she came to Pepperdine after graduating from high school with a 4.0 GPA. Garrison was a Pepperdine Scholar athlete in her first year at Pepperdine and achieved MPSF All-Academic honors in her sophomore year, according to Pepperdine Athletics.
Garrison said she believes a lot of the sports at Pepperdine wouldn’t recruit someone if they didn’t achieve good grades. She said the University being recognized for its high level academics was probably the biggest drive in her decision to come to Pepperdine.
“When you come on official visits here, they sit you down with athletic academic counselors,” Garrison said. “We have our own section, and we have an academic lab in Firestone where we go to study. There’s NCAA requirements for study hall, and those we take really seriously.”
Garrison went on to say, “There’s a lot of systems in place to make sure that you’re staying on top of your studies, and they tell you that upfront.”
Emily Garrison, Women’s Swim and Dive junior Fly/IM, stands on a starting block at Raleigh Runnels Memorial Pool on Oct. 9. Garrison, a junior, has achieved academic honors as a student-athlete during each of her first two years at Pepperdine. Photo courtesy of Emily Garrison
Under academics, Holm said he and his colleagues work together with students and provide assistance with classes for each semester and graduation plans and run a student tutoring program as a resource for student-athletes.
Garrison said she has used the student-athlete tutoring program and believes almost all her teammates have used it as well. There have been recent changes to further organize the tutoring system, which is worked around student-athlete’s schedules.
“The most simplistic way to say it is just making sure they feel supported in the classroom with the resources they need,” Holm said. “As student-athletes, it’s a full-time job.”
The fall 2025 average GPA for student-athletes was an increase from around a 3.2 average from years prior. Holm said the fall 2025 and the previous academic year had seen a high jump in comparison to previous years.
Gardner said fall 2024 was Athletics’ highest recorded GPA average and fall 2025 broke the previous record.
“That’s a reflection of our vision and expectation, and then it’s also a reflection of our coaches bringing in the right type of student-athletes and our strong academic support system,” Gardner said.
Holm said there’s a lot that goes into supporting a student-athlete, praising coaches, administrators and professors, but said student-athletes “are ultimately the ones that deserve credit at the end of the day.”
“Really proud of them for just being able to balance the demands of being a Division I athlete and the rigors of a high academic institution like Pepperdine,” Holm said.
Gardner said Pepperdine Athletics’ vision statement is championship athletics rooted in Christian values, academic excellence and community.
“We want to have championship athletics, and we want to be excellent in the classroom,” Gardner said. “Our students are student-athletes — we want them to be students first and athletes second.”
Garrison said Athletics has optional Waves networking nights they hold roughly twice a month where ex-athletes and people involved in the athletic world speak to student-athletes. Garrison attended one in the previous fall semester where they talked about business opportunities and internships and called it a highlight of being a student-athlete at Pepperdine.
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Email Nick Charkhedian: nareg.charkhedian@pepperdine.edu