After high school, Wynn went on to play four years at USC, helping the Trojans to one Pacific-10 Conference title and three NCAA Tournament appearances. In her sophomore season, Trakh became the head coach at Pepperdine. They continued to keep in touch, and he was soon suggesting she might become a coach, too.

He evidently convinced her because Wynn graduated from USC in the spring of 1996, and the day after her commencement ceremony she was at Pepperdine, in the city of Malibu north of Los Angeles, signing a contract to become a Waves assistant coach. She was 22 years old.

“(Trakh) afforded me an incredible opportunity to coach on the court right away,” Wynn said. “He taught me to strategize. He taught me how to run a program and how to manage a team.

“He always told me that I’d be a head coach by time I was 28. I’d say, ‘I don’t know, I’ve got a lot to learn.’ And he’d say, ‘No, you have what it takes.’ He groomed me from Day 1 and he allowed me to blossom.”

At the outset, Trakh said, what stood out about Wynn as a young coach was “her teaching ability. She knew how to impart her knowledge to her players. She was just a great teacher, and I saw that when she was 22 years old and my assistant at Pepperdine. The kids respected her and they listened to her.”

She also showed prowess in recruiting. As she was getting settled in her new job, she asked Trakh about the schools Pepperdine typically competed against for players. He mentioned a few of the Los Angeles area’s mid-majors, among them schools like Cal State Fullerton and Cal State Northridge.

“And she said, ‘Nah, we’re going to recruit against UCLA and SC,’” Trakh said with a chuckle. “I looked at this 22-year-old coach and told her, ‘It’s not that easy, Jody.’ But son of a gun if she didn’t bring us some players that were recruited by what was then the Pac-10. She won some recruiting wars.”

During their eight seasons together at Pepperdine, “we turned the program around,” he said. “We won four (West Coast Conference) titles, and Jody was very integral in that.”

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