Names in the News - July 2, 1987

Six athletes who played volleyball for UCLA and Pepperdine this year will play for the U. S. national team in the World University Games, July 9-17, at Zagreb, Yugoslavia.

Players from Pepperdine are Doug Rigg, Rob Scott and Troy Tanner. Those from UCLA are Arnie Lamberg, Matt Sonnichsen and Jeff Williams.

Others on the squad are Jeff Campbell of Cal State Northridge, Chris Chase of Penn State, Scott Fortune and Jon Root of Stanford and Adam Johnson and Jeff Wells of USC. The coach is Stanford’s Fred Sturm.

Several were named to Volleyball Monthly’s Asics Tiger All-American first team, including Tanner for the second year. Others were Chase, Johnson, Fortune, Williams and Penn State’s Javier Gaspar. Scott was a second-team selection. Matt Rigg, Doug’s brother, was on the third team, and Doug received honorable mention.

George Yamashita, an assistant coach for the Loyola Marymount women’s volleyball team this season, has been named head coach. He succeeds Nancy Fortner, who is planning to enter another field.

Yamashita, 33, helped Fortner lead the Lions to a West Coast Athletic Conference championship and a 24-8 overall record. Loyola defeated UCLA in the first round of the NCAA West Regional tournament before falling to Stanford in the second round.

A 1976 graduate of UCLA with a degree in sociology, Yamashita played volleyball for two years at UC San Diego before transferring to UCLA. The San Pedro resident has been coach of the San Gabriel Volleyball Club for seven years.

Pepperdine athletes Lisa Bevington, Laura Fort and Tom Lewis will compete in the 1987 Olympic Festival, July 15-26, in North Carolina. Bevington and Fort will play volleyball and Lewis plays basketball. Lewis has been in the festival for three straight years.

Five of the eight Pepperdine baseball players selected in the June major league baseball draft have signed contracts and are playing in the minor leagues.

They include Steve Erickson, New York Yankees; Paul Faries and Tony Lewis, San Diego Padres; Peter Kuld, Cleveland Indians, and Steve Scanlon, Minnesota Twins.

Steve Dell’Amico, drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies, and Doug Simons, picked by the Dodgers, decided to return to Pepperdine in the fall. Both are playing this summer for the North Pole Nicks in the Alaskan League.

Ruben Gonzalez, drafted by the Seattle Mariners, hopes to go back to Pepperdine but must complete summer school classes.

Steve Kirkpatrick, Pepperdine, was not drafted but signed as a free agent with the Phillies.

Pepperdine junior Jim Johnson was the first golfer from his school to compete in the NCAA tournament in Columbus, Ohio. Johnson shot a three-round total of 227 to finish 122nd in the 183-man field.