COMMENTARY : No Names May Mean No Crowd

It may be a cliche, but it remains rule No. 1 in the sports fan’s handbook: You can’t tell the players without a program.

Just ask Pierce College football fans. Or Antelope Valley College fans. Or members of the media. Or the respective football teams.

Or anybody else among the more than 1,000 lost souls who aren’t quite sure what they saw last Saturday night in the season-opening game at Pierce.

According to Bob O’Connor, men’s athletic director at Pierce, it wasn’t until shortly before kickoff that he realized there wouldn’t be any programs or team rosters available. The printer, it seems, had left them in a truck, which had been left locked in a restaurant parking lot. O’Connor wasn’t notified and was empty-handed when the game started.

The result was confusion in the stands and pandemonium in the press box. We’ve heard of the no-name defense, but this was ridiculous.

Reserve Pierce players were called on to stand in the back of the press box and assist the reporters, radio announcers and cable-television crew covering the game. But the players couldn’t decide who was on the field, and even got into arguments over whom they were identifying.

You’ve heard of calling ‘em as you see ‘em? This was calling ‘em as the guy behind you thinks he sees ‘em. Unless the guy next to him sees ‘em differently.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Dave Wooten, color commentator for radio station KAVL in Antelope Valley, which broadcast the game. “At one point, we just had to make up names. We talked with the coach just before game time, so we had a few of their names, but they must have 80 players on their roster.”

“We are going to Chula Vista (to play Southwestern College) this week,” Wooten said Friday, “and I assume they’ll have programs. Even high schools have programs. It was unbelievable at Pierce.

“Now I know why the Express picked that place.”

He was referring to the Los Angeles entry in the United States Football League, an organization trying to hang on by its chin straps to its last remaining shreds of credibility. Trying to find a new home should the league resume as planned in the fall of 1986, the ownerless, rudderless Express showcased itself to the Valley by playing its final game of 1985 at Pierce. With programs.

Admittedly, O’Connor was left in a tough situation, but it’s a situation that was not condoned by a man who has produced a few programs in his day.

“I frankly think it’s inexcusable,” said Jim Niles, public information officer at Moorpark College for the past decade. “I can see where problems can come up, but you should have no trouble getting a program out. The hardest thing would be getting the opponent’s roster, but you could get that over the phone if you had to. We’ve never failed to put out a program. We’ve had to really scramble on occasion and take a 90-player roster over the phone. But I can’t see not putting out a program, even if the printer quits. There’s just really no excuse for at least Xeroxing the roster and making it available to people.

“When you host a game, you want to demonstrate not only the quality of the product, but the quality of all that accompanies it--from the concessions to the public address announcer. You always want to appear that you know what you are doing. You want to make sure that the people in attendance can enjoy the game. I would say in that regard programs are almost as important as the referees.”

Said O’Connor, “I believe in forgiving and forgetting. We are going to stick with the same printer and everything should be fine from here on.”

Except for 1,000 angry fans.

Part of the reason for sticking with the same printer is that O’Connor’s arrangement is through an exchange club, with football tickets being bartered for services. It’s another way around the financial crunch that seems to constantly plague community colleges like Pierce.

But if you turn off 1,000 fans, perhaps leaving them confused and frustrated enough to vow not to return, how much has that cost you? Pierce can’t afford to lose one paying customer, much less 1,000.

It can’t afford to send people back to Antelope Valley, snickering at the small-time operators in the Big Valley.

Valley sports are getting bigger all the time--more fans, more media, more attention. The pros are beginning to look at the Valley with dollar signs in their eyes. The Express, if it can tread water for the next 12 months, would like to relocate at Pierce. The Los Angeles Lazers soccer team might eventually come over the hill, at least for a training site. Minor league baseball may be coming to Camarillo next year.

Others could follow, bringing in a lot of income for the area. One and one-half million people can’t be ignored forever.

Surely none of this is going to hang on a few missing programs.

What it really comes down to is image. People are looking at Pierce as the logical site for some big sporting events. And if they don’t like what they see, they’ll look elsewhere.