No pause button: Katie Faulkner, a newborn, and Pepperdine’s growth

Pepperdine’s recent road trip looked mostly routine – scouting reports, film sessions, practice plans.

Except head coach Katie Faulkner had a plus-one: a nine-day-old baby.

Her newborn daughter, Cali, traveled with the team while Faulkner front-packed her through practices and meetings, ducking in and out for feedings as assistants helped run drills and staff held the baby between stretches of practice.

“There’s no such thing as balance…,” Faulkner said. “It’s just seasons.”

This season, she’s lived all of them at once.

When Faulkner first realized her due date was in February, she understood immediately what it meant – it would fall directly in the middle of the season.

“Finding out we were like, ‘Oh… February, okay,’” she said.

She had experienced pregnancy before, but never as a head coach in the middle of a season. Her other children were born while she was an assistant, when someone else ran the team. This time, she was the one in charge.

Rather than creating a strict plan, she prepared for both possibilities – returning quickly or needing a little time away.

“I just kind of went with, I’ll take it as it comes…,” she said. “I left myself room for healing in case I wasn’t ready.”

Soon after the birth, she decided to sit out a game and watch from home, trusting her staff to run the team. She’d done the same a week or so before her due date. 

The hardest moment came watching a close game against Saint Mary’s on TV.

“The buzzer beater,” she said. “My husband looked at me and said, ‘Don’t go down that road. If you had been there, you wouldn’t have fixed it.’”

Pepperdine kept functioning anyway – and that mattered. They won their next four consecutive contests.

Faulkner believes her program’s culture was illustrated in that time. During her absence, practices ran the same, scouting reports were prepared and assistants handled everything.

“We’re very systematic,” she said. “Our practices run like a well-oiled machine… nothing changed from that perspective, except I wasn’t there.”

Instead of frustration, she felt reassurance.

“It’s honestly kind of freeing to watch that and be able to be a leader that can empower others…,” she said. “If someone goes on maternity leave at Google, the company doesn’t fall apart. We’re the same. The standard is the standard.”

The season itself reflected that growth. Pepperdine had been competitive all year but repeatedly lost tight games – margins as small as a single possession.

“We were 16 points away from being 17-3,” she said.

With a roster full of newcomers, the team wasn’t just learning plays. It was learning how to close games.

“There came a turning point,” Faulkner said. “Are you ready to be who you know you can be?”

Recently, she’s seen that shift.

“They’re not playing with a fear to lose anymore,” she said. “They’re playing with a nothing-to-lose mentality.”

Now daily life blends basketball and motherhood. Cali eats every three hours. At practice, assistants occasionally hold the baby while Faulkner goes through a play.

Her players – many seeing a newborn up close for the first time – embraced it immediately.

“They’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s so little…,’” Faulkner said. “They’re in love.”

Her older children run around the gym as well, and players take time to play with them. For Faulkner, those moments matter as much as results.

“It shows their humility and character,” she said.

She doesn’t pretend it’s easy.

“If I’m killing it as a mom, I’m probably not watching film,” she said. “If I’m killing it as a coach, I’m not tucking my kids in or giving them a bath at night. There’s a give and take and it’s beautiful if you approach it the right way.”

The lesson she hopes her team learns goes beyond basketball.

“It’s cool for the girls to watch you be human,” she said. “And to see that you can do both.”

Pepperdine still has games remaining, and Faulkner’s message to her team is simple: early success means nothing yet.

“Don’t let the historic start trick you that we made it,” she said of the message. “We haven’t made it. We can’t have that mentality. We have to keep growing.”

She frames the season around growth and opportunity before the conference tournament.

“There’s a lot of magic that could lie on the other side of this come March if we play our best basketball,” she said.

For a season that has included close losses, a rebuilding roster and a newborn on team trips, the story isn’t about perfect circumstances.

It’s about building – a roster, a culture and a program – even when life outside of basketball refuses to pause.