Those of you who follow basketball are no doubt aware that Paul Westphal recently passed away due to a malignant brain tumor. You can read about his lengthy basketball career here, and his obituary here.
I am writing this post not to review what you can read in the two links above, but rather to recount some of the time that we both worked at Pepperdine. The picture below is how Paul looked during his time as coach of the Pepperdine men's basketball team.
I would describe our time at Pepperdine as acquaintances who chatted occasionally. When I was Chairman of the Natural Science Division, we had a variety of Pepperdine colleagues as speakers at our Division meetings to share their personal reflections on
Wisdom. Paul was a willing participant as one of our speakers [others included legendary volleyball coach Marv Dunphy, Doug Kmieck, Ken Starr, Provost Tippens and President Benton]. One of my favorite stories is about the time that Rhonda and I were seated alongside Paul and his wife at one of the Pepperdine Athletics Awards Dinners. The Westphals were very pleasant, easy to talk with and unpretentious, particularly given his Hall-of-Fame career. When we headed home, one of Rhonda's first observations was "Did you see the SIZE of her diamond??!!" I hadn't, but I certainly could imagine. Godspeed Paul.
