When Dwayne Polee arrived at Pepperdine in the fall of 1982, head coach Jim Harrick told him two things: He would earn a diploma and he would become the Waves’ point guard.
Polee achieved both things, and in the process, gave plenty back to Harrick and Pepperdine, including a pair of West Coast Conference championships and two NCAA Tournament bids.
“Everything we did fit into Dwayne Polee’s game,” Harrick said. “He was a dynamic player. He was the two-time MVP of the league. There are not many guys who have gone through the West Coast Conference and were two times the MVP.”
For those accomplishments, Polee has been named Pepperdine’s 2024 WCC Hall of Honor inductee. He will be recognized during ceremonies on Saturday, March 9, at the Credit Union 1 WCC Basketball Championship in Las Vegas.
“I can celebrate my birthday at the Hall of Fame in Vegas,” said Polee, who will have turned 61 just a week earlier.
Asked how he reacted after getting the news last month, Polee laughed. “I felt old . . . It was a great honor. My family was happy, and I was elated about that. I’m excited about it. I can’t wait. It’ll be a fun day for me.”
Polee’s basketball story began at Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles, the alma mater of “It’s a Wonderful Life” film director Frank Capra, Pro Football Hall of Famer Tom Fears, artist Jackson Pollock and Rachel Robinson, the wife of Jackie Robinson.
Polee’s claim to fame at the school was averaging 32.1 points as a senior in 1980-81 and leading the Toilers into the city championship game against Crenshaw.
With a record crowd of 14,136 fans at the L.A. Sports Arena, Polee scored 43 points on 17-for-20 shooting in an 82-69 victory. “I think I could have scored 50 if coach would have let me,” Polee recalled. “The basketball rim seemed like it was an ocean wide. I couldn’t miss. It was a great night for me.”
“His stats were crazy,” former Manual Arts head coach Reggie Morris Sr. told the Los Angeles Times. “He didn’t miss a shot in the second half. He was going to do everything to win the game.”
“He was a Los Angeles city legend,” Harrick said. “I wasn’t at that game but I saw him play a bunch. You just marveled at his athletic ability.”
Polee spent his freshman college season at UNLV before settling in at Malibu. That’s where Harrick laid out his ambitions for his new player.
“The first thing Coach Harrick told me was, `Son, you’ve got to graduate. It’s not about basketball,’ “ Polee said. “I had a lot of people at Pepperdine who made sure I got my education there and got my degree. I’m the first one in my family to graduate from college, so I was really happy about that.”
Harrick, 85, said it was merely a matter of getting Polee to focus. “He didn’t do really well academically at Vegas. He didn’t lock in. I told him, `We’re going to give you all the help you need, but it’s got to come from within. It’s up to you to get it done.”
One thing Harrick insisted on was that Polee remain at school on weekends to stay on top of his classwork, “At Vegas he’d go home all the time. We didn’t let him go home,” Harrick said. “He graduated in four years and he gets the credit for that. He’s a magnificent young guy.”
Polee redshirted his first year at Pepperdine while beginning to learn the skills to play a new position. A forward in high school, and as a freshman at Vegas, Polee became the Waves’ lead guard.
“The West Coast Conference didn’t have a lot of 6-5 guards then. He was a very difficult matchup,” Harrick said. “He’s got a burst of quickness and he could get anywhere he wanted to on the floor with the dribble. He just couldn’t dribble very well. We spent two years working on that. All he needed was fundamentals.”
Polee still remembers the conversation. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do for you, I’m going to put you at the point guard. I’m going to let you run my team,” Harrick told him. “And he let me do that. He let me be a leader of a team and the guys all rallied. I really appreciate Coach Harrick putting me at the right position to succeed.”
A three-year starter, Polee scored 11.0 points per game as a redshirt sophomore in 1983-84 then blossomed. He averaged 15.7 points and 4.8 assists the next year, earning WCC Player of the Year honors and leading the Waves to the Conference title with a 23-9 overall record.
As a senior in 1985-86, Polee scored exactly 15.7 points again to go with 4.2 assists and repeated as WCC Player of the Year. Doug Christie (1991 and ’92) is the only other Pepperdine player to win the award twice. Polee powered Pepperdine to its second straight conference title and a 25-5 overall record.
Polee scored 1,274 career points in three years, but he was no one-man show. “Eric White was a great player,” Polee said of the three-time All-WCC selection. “And we had (6-7, 244-pound) Levy Middlebrooks — he looked like the Hulk.”
The key was Polee and Harrick remains proud of him all these years later. “He loved the game. Great competitor. Unselfish. He could probably do anything he wanted as a college player,” Harrick said. “He just kept developing and got better and better.”
The Waves were 28-0 at home his final two seasons. “We just said we’re not going to lose,” Polee said. “We had so much pride when we played at Firestone Fieldhouse. It was a great time. The arena was packed. We were like, `Let’s get it on. You’re in our house.’ ”
Pepperdine drew tough assignments in the NCAA Tournament both years, matched against elite opponents from the Atlantic Coast Conference. In ’85, they lost, 75-62, to a Duke team featuring Johnny Dawkins, Tommy Amaker and Jay Bilas. A year later, they fell just short, 69-64, against a Maryland squad led by All-American Len Bias.
In the second-to-last game of his career before dying from a cocaine-induced heart attack, Bias scored 26 points against Pepperdine. “Len Bias was a little tough for us. That dude had a chiseled body like a grown man,” Polee said. “That was a sad case. Heartbreaking.”
By comparison, Polee has only fond memories of his time at Pepperdine “Some don’t even have to do with basketball, they have to do with life,” he said.
He remembers attending church services on campus every Monday, which gave him energy and perspective he carried through the week. “It really made me appreciate where I’m at, playing basketball at Pepperdine, being at a safe place because I was from South Central,” Polee said. “And it made me appreciate life more. To be at Pepperdine. It was a blessing to wear that logo and that wave on your chest.”
Polee was selected by the Los Angeles Clippers in the third round of the 1986 NBA Draft, but his career consisted of a single game. On Nov. 4, 1986, he played six minutes against the Dallas Mavericks, scoring two points. One week later, he was waived.
“It was kind of disappointing. All their players were on guaranteed contracts. You’re the odd man out,” Polee said without bitterness. “Sometimes it ain’t in the cards.”
Polee played two seasons for Limoneros de Colima, a team in the Mexican professional league located a couple hours southwest of Guadalajara. “Great people, beautiful city. Had a great time down there,” he said.
He also had stints coaching or working in the basketball operations department at San Francisco, LMU and USC.
These days, Polee teaches PE at a grammar school in Los Angeles. “I love it,” he said. “It’s like my calling to be an inner-city mentor to the little kids.”
He and his wife, Yolanda, have been married for 15 years. Son Dwayne Polee II was the 2010 L.A. City Player of the Year at Westchester High School and played at St. John’s and San Diego State. He also has a daughter, Ashli.
Polee still roots for his alma mater and appreciates that Pepperdine sent him on a path to a happy and successful life.
“Through basketball, I’ve met some great people. I traveled to places I could have never experienced. Got me a free education,” he said. “It’s been good to me. It really has.”