Northridge Sports Lose Heart and Soul

Cal State Northridge has jettisoned four men’s sports from its athletic program. It was a move one administrator compared to ripping the bandage off a scab.

The thinking was that, done slowly and tentatively, such cuts could be agonizing; done quickly and decisively, the pain would be intense but short-lived.

That analogy by Ronald Kopita, who oversees what’s left of Northridge athletics, is ill-conceived.

What Northridge has done to its sports program is inflict a mortalwound--and provide a sad commentary on the leadership and direction of the university.

Baseball, volleyball, soccer and swimming were the heart and soul of Northridge sports, the nucleus of what used to be the type of broad-based athletic programs state universities strived for.

Part of the Cal State University system’s mission statement says that the campuses should, in every way, reflect their communities. If that is Northridge’s goal--as it should be--the athletic program is failing miserably.

The future of sports in the San Fernando Valley is unveiled in a daily carnival on school grounds and neighborhood parks. Their athletic fields offer a glimpse into the culture and heritage of the area. So what team sports are our young boys playing on those fields?

Baseball, soccer and volleyball.

This month, for the 24th time in 25 years, a Valley high school team won the City Section 4-A baseball championship. Last month, another Valley team won the City boys’ volleyball title. And another Valley team advanced to the City soccer final before losing.

Meanwhile, Northridge offers an NCAA Division I-AA football team. As if there were legions of followers who care.

Here’s an example:

Last year, Montana, the No. 2-ranked I-AA football team in the nation, showed up at North Campus Stadium for a first-place showdown against the oh-so-very-exiting-to-watch Matadors. Barely 4,000 fans showed up. High school games that same weekend drew more.

The turnout was a hint that small-college football shows up as but a blip on an average Southland sports fan’s screen.

Yet Kopita, vice president for student affairs, and Athletic Director Paul Bubb repeated their commitments to football and the Big Sky Conference in meetings with reporters Wednesday.

Dropping sports, they contend, is a sacrifice prompted by a budget deficit and state-mandated gender-equity requirements.

Of course, truth be told, football is the elephant tipping both scales. It is by far Northridge’s most expensive sport, and one that has no female equivalent.

The only thing football does do is secure Northridge’s place in The Show--a Division I conference. In fact, the only men’s teams surviving the rash of cuts were Big Sky Conference “core sports”--programs all members of the league are required to offer.

Northridge’s golf team, which had been on the chopping block, is safe only until the conference decides whether it will add that or men’s tennis as a core sport next year.

What’s left for the men, other than football and basketball, are cross-country and track and field--which pull athletes from the same talent pool. So much for the diversity of the athletic program.

Then there is the matter of tradition.

In the introduction to its own mission statement, Northridge talks about that.

It states that a university cannot survive solely on tradition. Neither, it adds, should it “discard the best of its tradition on the basis of expedience.”

Those words ring hollow today.

No program is more steeped in tradition than the Northridge baseball team.

A proving ground for more than 100 professional ballplayers, the program brought the school more fame than any other sport. Seven years ago, in the school’s first year at the top level of NCAA competition, Northridge stepped up to the plate and came within three outs of qualifying for the College World Series.

Then there is the volleyball team, which was perennially ranked in the top 10 nationally. In terms of popularity, no other Northridge sport has ever come close to leading the nation in home attendance as the volleyball team did from 1991 to ’93.

Soccer hasn’t recently enjoyed the same success it did as a Division II power in the 1980s, but the team still is immensely popular in a community with hundreds of youth leagues and club teams.

Indeed, around the Valley, futbol is many times more popular than football.

But Northridge administrators probably don’t realize that. It seems they’ve lost touch with the very people they serve.