Pepperdine has announced the appointment of Jana Vincent as the interim head coach of the Pepperdine women’s swimming & diving program for the remainder of the 2019-2020 season. Her promotion comes as the program’s 2nd-year head coach, Joe Spahn, is no longer listed on the school’s website.
Spahn was hired as the program’s new head coach in March of 2018 after 3 seasons as an assistant at Notre Dame and 2 seasons as an assistant at Hawaii. In the team’s lone PCSC conference championship meet with Spahn as head coach, they finished 2nd behind Cal State, East Bay and broke 5 school records.
Vincent joined the program in the fall of 2018 as a volunteer assistant before being promoted to a full-time assistant position this season. Lauren Larsen remains on staff as the program’s diving coach.
Vincent swam collegiately for Washington and Florida and was a 15-time All-American and the runner-up in the 200 individual medley at the 1987 NCAA Championship. She graduated from Florida in 1989 with a degree in political science. She coached at Washington from 1995-2000.
The Waves resume the 2019-20 season with a home meet against Colorado State and New Mexico next Wednesday (Jan. 8).
Pepperdine is 3-6 in dual meets this season, but took a 184.5-121.5 dual meet win over the defending PCSC champions Cal State, East Bay in November.
SwimSwam has reached out to both Pepperdine and Spahn for comment on the mid-season change, which is rare in collegiate swimming, but as of posting has not received a response.
Why mid season?
Coach Joe was the best thing to happen to Pepperdine Swim. Its so sad that the girls that couldn’t handle the new workload and started losing, and their wealthy parents had to ruin it for the team/school. My best guess is that Joe will have the last laugh since no evidence was found against him in the investigation. He will go on to another school that will love to have his talent and they will thrive. No good coach will touch Pepp now. What a shame all the way around. Good luck to you Joe. Cant wait to see where you end up and the great things you do there. Your reputation is amazing and this is not a reflection… Read more »
Ill take the job
It is such a pity losing such a driven coach. Joe trained these girls really hard as D1 swimmers should train, unfortunately some just couldn’t handle D1 training. It’s also amazing watching these helicopter parents work their magic in aiding their daughters in damaging the career and reputation of Coach Joe. Life is not fair. Coach Joe is one of the BEST coaches my family has ever met. When it is all said anf done Joe’s career will prosper and all of the negative and unhappy people will never succeed. Best of luck to you Joe. The important people know your worth. This is temporary. God bless you.
Funny that you say “god bless you”.
Pre-Joe, a senior swimmer would lead the swimmers in a prayer before their meet. In the first meet of the season, a senior asked Joe if she could lead the team prayer. He said no. He denied them of practicing their faith — the very foundation on which the school is built upon.
“Joe’s career will prosper and all of the negative and unhappy people will never succeed“ — seems a little dramatic to me. I question the validity of your statements and encourage everyone else on this page to do the same. These are girls. They are in the beginning of their lives, swim careers are temporary, mental health is forever.… Read more »
Please Stop.Pepperdine is an amazing university with great leaders. It is a privilege to swim at the collegiate level. It takes hard work and grit and perhaps some may have been better off at other programs. But you don’t air your issues in this public forum.
No please do. I have no football teams playing right now, no hockey team, and my basketball team stinks. No swimmers are resting right now, so this drama is pretty much all I got.
Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount are both sorry excuses for D1 swim programs. There I said it out loud.
Agreed 110٪
true. But at least Pepp had a chance of changing that with Joe.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion however, until you know the entire story, you don’t know what happened and can’t accurately comment. This has absolutely nothing to do about the upperclassmen, their work ethic, or the previous coaches. The girls committed themselves to Pepperdine and the swim program. Lastly, you can’t compare apples to oranges, i.e., Joe is not his dad.
Look at what Joe accomplished at Notre Dame. And yes, we do have the entire story.
Too bad Waves have lost one of the best coaches they have ever had. Finally brought the program back to respectability. Some of the older swimmers couldn’t cut it and went running to admin. Advice to the freshman class – there are schools out there that will welcome your talent. Waves sure don’t.
> Advice to the freshman class – there are schools out there that will welcome your talent. Waves sure don’t.
I’m unclear what this means.
#Pepperalum, If that is the case,too bad. You certainly must have a better inside scoop. I would gladly recant my opinion if there is an additional statement clarifying his departure. In any event is very unfortunate for any program to lose its head coach in the middle of a season.
# instead of @ is a total Dad move, and i mean that in an awesome way fwiw
Interesting insight, and have no idea what happened…while I do not know Joe…I did swim for his dad as an age grouper and in college. I am going to make the assumption that Joe’s style was and is similar to his dad…..Joe’s dad was a swimmers coach…We had tough demanding sets, but he always knew when we needed a break and we always had fun swimming. I have great memories of swimming for Joe’s dad! Plus…with his training methods…. I did win a few races!
I have similar memories of swimming for Joe’s dad. Like swimming for all good coaches, however, you have to buy into the program and do the work. It sounds like the transition was to much for some of the girls from the old regime at Pepperdine.
Really! You have no clue.
I’m a current swimmer at Pepperdine. And, I was recruited by Coach Spahn. He was all-talk. I don’t know his dad at all but he’s certainly not a swimmers coach. He was abusive, showed favoritism, and was rude to many of my fellow swimmers who tried very hard to do whatever he asked. I already decided to transfer away from Malibu before the committee investigated and then fired Coach Spahn. Inwill say if some of the other girls transfer it’s not because they wish he had stayed. it’s because the athletic administration here at Pepp stood by and let him abuse us way too long.
I know for a fact that you are not a freshman at Pepperdine. I think I know who you are and you are a bully and tell so many lies you can’t keep them straight. The committee found nothing wrong so some fathers made some donations.
SwimSwam editors and writers, please post an email address or instructions on how we can post Pepperdines independent committee review of Joes tenure. The parents want it made public. It includes many things we are sure his father would be ashamed of. No parents paid or donated to the school to have Joe removed as asserted above. Joe had himself removed by his own pool deck and locker room antics. He was chastised by the leagues coaches during the 2019 conference meet for his anger management issue. He was called out by the investigation committee for favoritism and he created a divisive environment on the team. And much more we want public. It’s embarrassing for the kids, the school, and… Read more »
Hi JMPepp – any news tips can be sent to [email protected]
JMPEPP what’s with the bitterness? If the swim world reads the report will laugh out loud because a few privileged swimmers can’t handle hard work. These swimmers are supposed to work hard, handle stress, build confidence, learn independence, tough it out & learn interpersonal skills. You can’t get everything you want with all the money you have. You can’t always cry to your parents . Parents should stay out and allow their kids to grow up. How about the report on the assistant coach who was let go?Should that be posted too??
The assistant coach wasn’t let go, she left on her own terms. The day she left she sat all of the girls down and cried as she told them that she could no longer handle the mental abuse from Joe. She even warned them to protect themselves.
Alwaysbekind? What irony.
It sounds like you didn’t know what was happening on that team. I encourage you to take a look at the report. Or maybe the Google doc which the swimmers took log of every abusive and degrading comment Joe made. Or, feel free to reach out to me! I would be more than happy to give you a detailed account of what happened on that team. For now,… Read more »
I said it once on Twitter and I’ll say it again, it’s blatantly obvious who this is, why are you still part of this conversation? Please leave these girls alone. As a sister of one of the girls, I promise you that my dad made no such donation 🙂
As you get older and go through life you will experience what real LIFE is all about. You have to be tough, have confidence, be strong and work hard. Tougher times are ahead. Bigger challenges and all kinds of personalities will come your way. Life is not a fairy tale. Good luck to you.
Freshswimpepp As you get older and go through life you will experience what real LIFE is all about. You have to be tough, have confidence, be strong and work hard. Tougher times are ahead. Bigger challenges and all kinds of personalities will come your way. Life is not a fairy tale. Good luck to you.
@Alwaysbekind are you really going to attack a 17/18 year old girl? You have mentioned several times that you are a parent, so at least twice her age?
In every other circumstance this behavior would not be tolerated. If you have an abusive boss or significant other everyone would tell you to leave. So, why is it in this instance you believe that his behavior is validated?
@Freshswimpepp the mental abusive you and the other girls endured on the team was very abnormal. I hope that none of you ever go through any other difficult times such as these. However, even if you do, you have learned an invaluable lesson and that is to walk away. Stand up… Read more »
Seems he could have been a good coach but also gives the impression that he lacked organizational skills to lead a program.
not material to the problems. No coach gets tossed mid season without major issues. Just leave it at that.
or major lies. NO EVIDENCE FOUND.