Fullerton Suspends Coach for One Week

Nancy Welliver, the women’s volleyball coach at Fullerton College, has been suspended for a week by the school for an altercation involving a player, associate athletic director Paul Lanning said Tuesday.

The college wouldn’t elaborate, saying only that the incident happened in the second game of Fullerton’s three-game sweep over visiting Orange Coast Friday.

Welliver and Athletic Director Sue Beers had no comment on the incident or the suspension, which started Monday.

Welliver, a former assistant at Cerritos College, is in her third season at Fullerton. The team is 5-2 and ranked third in the state. She led Fullerton to a second-place finish in the Orange Empire Conference and a berth in the state tournament last season.

“We don’t want this incident to detract from the team,” Lanning said. “Obviously, it’s a very talented team and we just want to get past this.”

Assistant Janna Nelson will take over the team and Lisa Bassi, the Fullerton softball coach, will be the faculty representative when the team travels to Saddleback for Wednesday’s 7 p.m. match and hosts Rancho Santiago at the same time Friday.

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Kevin Kiernan, the Cypress women’s basketball coach, has been suspended for the first two games of the upcoming season because of a recruiting violation, Orange Empire Conference Commissioner T. Mark Johnson said. The decision was made at a recent conference meeting.

Kiernan broke a state code rule by sending a letter to an out-of-district athlete. Once Athletic Director Dick Van Voorhis became aware of the letter, he reported the violation to the conference.

“The conference is starting to get a little tougher on these things,” Van Voorhis said.

Cypress starts the season Nov. 16 at Palomar.

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Fullerton College’s baseball team won’t be able to participate in the 1997 postseason as a result of using an ineligible player last season, Johnson said.

The unidentified player was academically eligible but never placed on the eligibility list that is given to each Orange Empire team.