Small Colleges / Alan Drooz : Dominguez Hills Soccer Coach Has a Double Vision

From Cal State Dominguez Hills comes the proud, the few--actually the only--Marine Cano, defender of the goal and double sword bearer in the soccer wars.

Cano, a former pro soccer goalie, inaugurated Dominguez Hills’ women’s soccer program last year. He is coaching both the men’s and women’s teams this season in the highly competitive California Collegiate Athletic Assn.

So far, Cano has managed to pull it off, leading the men to a 7-3 record while the women are at .500 against a strong schedule. But the energetic 32-year-old coach says there have been times he wouldn’t wish the double duty on an enemy.

Last Wednesday, for instance, included one of several doubleheaders on his schedule. Cano coached the men in a league game at home at 3 p.m., then jumped into his car and arrived in time for the women’s game at UC Santa Barbara at 7:30.

He got home after 1 a.m., then was back in the office the next morning at 10.

On the last weekend of September, the men’s team drove 13 hours to Salt Lake City, where it beat Westminster College, then continued to Provo, Utah, where it upset Brigham Young, 1-0, then turned back and drove home. Meanwhile the women were losing, 1-0, at Pomona.

“I thought we were in the twilight zone, no exits, gonna drive forever,” Cano said. “We were dead tired the whole time. That drive home was the longest 13 hours of my life. If we’d lost them both I might never have recovered.”

Because he inherited the men’s schedule, he has twice had conflicts with his teams playing concurrently at different sites.

Will he do it again next year?

“I can’t sit back and evaluate it off this year because if I did, I wouldn’t do it again,” he said. “I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a problem. It’s hard to find time.

“There’s so much more to coaching in college than just sitting on the bench--paper-work, eligibility things, getting them in college, helping them with classes, financial aid. All college coaches have these problems. I just have them in stereo.”

It’s clear, though, that Cano is already thinking about next year. “This is the tough year,” he said. “Next year it will be my fault if we’re not twice as good.”

Sue Carberry, Dominguez Hills athletic director, said that she anticipated the difficulties. “But he was so enthusiastic I thought, ‘How can I deny him?’ I hope he can last it out a few years. The fact that he’s got two assistants is the only way it could work. But his knowledge is being imparted to the two teams and that’s what I wanted.”

Cano, who was good enough to be invited to play in the semipro Greater Los Angeles League at 15, began coaching at his alma mater, Bishop Montgomery High School in Torrance, when he was 21. He said he has always been drawn to coaching and jumped at the chance when Dominguez Hills in nearby Carson asked him to start a women’s program last year.

“I was so excited to be a head coach on the college level, and women’s soccer is the up and coming thing. I wanted to be part of the growth,” he said.

With a roster of 12 players, four of whom never played before, the team got off to a 2-0 start. “We were on top of the world,” he said.

Then reality set in. Two players suffered season-ending knee injuries in the third game. The team played the rest of the year with 10 players, and in one game was down to eight, but managed two ties for a 2-9-2 record.

It was a frustrating but educational year for the coach. He devised a rotating zone defense borrowed from basketball to keep his team in most games and has carried it on this year. And, he said, his players never gave up.

“Last year we probably had the least-skilled team in the nation but we were No. 1 in character,” Cano said.

This season, adding a few local junior college recruits, the women have played competitive games against some nationally ranked teams. “We’re gonna catch ‘em,” Cano says. “We’re gonna beef this team up till we beat the Santa Barbaras. Then people are gonna know who we are.”

The Dominguez Hills men have had a strong program. They reached the Division II Final Four in 1982, but Coach Jeff Friedman was in a serious car accident in midseason last year and resigned. The administration asked Cano to consider coaching both teams.

He has delegated a great deal of authority to assistants Randy Hanson with the men and Andy Bonchonski with the women. “I want to be at every game. But there’s nothing lacking when I’m not there,” he said. “They’re both on the way to being good head coaches. If I was by myself, I’d have ice packs on my head.”

When he took over the men’s team, he learned that only five players would be returning. Marine went looking for a few good men, signing nine recruits. He entered the season hoping to be competitive. But after losing its first two games, the team won seven straight before losing to Northridge in overtime last weekend.

“I’ve got my guys thinking playoffs,” he said. “They looked at me kind of funny at the start of the season. Now they’re starting to believe me. You’ve got to set your goals high. You can’t let down.”

The first Rolex Men’s Small College Southern California tennis tournament will be held Friday through Sunday at Claremont-McKenna College. The

tournament, sponsored by the Intercollegiate Tennis Coaches Assn. and planned as an annual event, was created to give national recognition to players below the Division I level and includes NAIA and junior college players as well.

Winners of the eight men’s events will qualify for the Rolex Small College national tournament for men and women, scheduled Dec. 9-11 at the Jimmy Connors Tennis Center in Fort Myers, Fla.

Cal Poly Pomona had a strong showing in cross-country last weekend, strengthening its national ranking for both the men’s and women’s teams. The men’s No. 1 team placed seventh among 42 teams at the Notre Dame Invitational, with sophomore Eddie Toro finishing seventh in 24:31.2, a personal best for five miles. Abel Mota, a junior, was 15th in 24:55.

Meanwhile, the men’s No. 2 team was eighth in the 26-team Stanford Invitational, led by senior Brock Vaughn, who was 16th with a 10-kilometer time of 32:27.3.

The women won the Roadrunner Invitational at Cal State Bakersfield in a five-kilometer race. Joann Howard, with a time of 17:19, Karen Farley in 17:33, and Helen Lopez in 17:58 finished 2-3-4.

The men will compete Saturday in the 26th annual Biola Invitational at La Mirada Park. The women will be running in the Aggie Invitational at UC Davis, where they’ll get a chance to size up most of the top Division II teams in Northern California.

Cal State Northridge will be the host school at another big invitational Saturday at College of the Canyons in Valencia. The women’s run will start at 9 a.m., followed by the men at 9:45. Most of the Southland’s Division I schools will send teams.

Northridge’s star is Alex Aguirre, who finished 10th in the women’s race at Stanford and has been in the top 15 in three races against Division I runners.