This Year, Cassidy Is a Scream a Minute

During a Cal State Northridge basketball practice the other day, Coach Pete Cassidy walked slowly up and down the court offering a few observations about the play of his Matadors.

“Damn it,” and “What the hell,” were, seemingly, his most frequent remarks, depending on the degree of his displeasure.

“Hold it!” Cassidy yelled at one player during one of his milder attacks. “You playing your offense or my offense?” he asked.

The player answered that it was Cassidy’s offense.

“Well then, damn it, run it . . .,” said Cassidy.

Like most coaches, Cassidy exhibits the customary tough-guy image when his team blows a defensive assignment or misses a free throw.

Cassidy orders players to do pushups when they make mistakes. He mutters and grumbles. After one of his guards turned the ball over during a scrimmage, Cassidy complained to a visitor, “. . . kid thinks he’s Magic Johnson.”

Most the time, however, Cassidy is reserved and quiet--perhaps even meek.

He acts and looks like John Wooden, “Except his strongest words were ‘Goodness gracious,’ ” Cassidy said. “I can use the vernacular to far greater extent.”

Said CSUN guard Paul Drecksler of Cassidy: “He idolizes John Wooden. He patterns himself after him. He even taught us one of Wooden’s offenses, even though we don’t use it.”

When Cassidy was a high school coach at Notre Dame in the early 1960s, he worked at Wooden’s basketball camp for two years. Said Cassidy: “I learned a lot from him. I could go in and listen and watch. There’s no doubt I have tremendous admiration and respect for him. He had an influence on me.

“But if I went around saying ‘Goodness gracious,’ it would be phony. Dean Smith, Bobby Knight, Lou Carneseca and John Thompson have all influenced me. You won’t see anything from Jim Valvano in me, though. All that jumping around, that’s not me.”

In Cassidy’s 15 years as coach at CSUN, he has managed a record of 218-155. He has won the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. title four times and taken the Matadors to the NCAA Division II Western Regionals in 1978, ’79 and again last year.

“His teams are difficult to play against,” said Ernie Wheeler, who has coached at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo since 1972. “The thing about Pete, your first impression is he’s quiet. But he is competitive. His teams are a lot like him. They have the intangibles. They are well-disciplined and they play hard.

“And he’s done it there with very average material,” Wheeler said.

Last year is one example. Cassidy’s team was picked to finish seventh in the CCAA, but it surprised the league by winning the championship and going on to beat the No. 4-ranked team in Division II, Eastern Montana, in the regionals. The Matadors lost their second playoff game and finished with a 20-10 record.

Cassidy has managed to acquire reasonable success in a difficult coaching situation, where he has two chronic problems--recruiting and limited funding. He must fight the other Division II schools, junior colleges and, in some cases, Division I schools for recruits. He often loses.

Said Cassidy: “I’ve lost players to JC coaches. One of my players graduated from Notre Dame High with a 3.4 grade-point average and he was coerced into playing for a junior college by a coach who told him he would go on to play Division I. He did go on to play one year in Division I, but he had trouble academically and didn’t play much. He came here his last year. I wish I’d had him four years.

“A lot of players want to go Division I,” Cassidy said. “The argument that a player will go on from JC to bigger schools doesn’t hold up. So few players actually go on--maybe the top 10%. Players would do better going somewhere where they would play. That’s what they could do here.”

“He’s used to being disappointed,” said Mark Felix, one of Cassidy’s assistants. “Last year he recruited two or three top prospects, but they went elsewhere. He’s learned not to get his hopes up too high. Even though we’re the university in the Valley, we can’t land the players in the Valley.”

Part of CSUN’s problem is that Cassidy can offer only a limited number of partial scholarships. While Division II schools are allowed 12 scholarships, Cassidy said the most CSUN has offered is four. Two of those are provided by fundraising events.

Some relief is in sight. Next fall, CSUN will charge $4 per semester from each student’s tuition to help fund all sports programs, Cassidy said.

But, he said, “We’ll still be among the lower three of our conference in scholarships. Sometimes, when I look at the budget, I wonder if basketball is cared about at all here.”

He then adds diplomatically, “But basketball, as it is, fits well into the University right now.”

The coach’s contract at CSUN is renewed on a year-to-year basis.

CSUN basketball also has trouble drawing spectators. Even when the Matadors are winning, the stands are rarely full. “If we win,” Felix said, pointing to the seats, “they’ll be two-thirds full. If we lose, it could be barren.

“If you had a ticket to see UCLA or USC or the Lakers, where would you go?”

Last year, the Matadors averaged about 400 fans. The CSUN gym can accommodate 3,000.

“I’d rather play before 10,000 people who hate my guts than an empty house,” Cassidy said.

Cassidy also handles his players’ academic shortcomings.

“You have more people in Division II with academic problems,” Drecksler said. “Coach Cassidy seems to handle that kind of situation well.”

Two of CSUN’s starters from last year--forward Dale Brandsberg and guard Rafael Meza--are gone because of poor grades. Five other key players were lost to graduation.

Back at practice, Cassidy told a reporter, “We’ll be as green as your jacket.” The jacket was indeed a deep green.

He turned to his players and yelled, “Be patient! You’ve got 45 seconds to shoot.”

The NCAA has gone to a 45-second shot clock this year.

“I hate the clock,” he said. “It gives the teams with more talent even more of an advantage. You have enough restrictions already. You’re slow. You’re small. You don’t want to add to that by adding a clock.”

Just one more problem for Cassidy to solve.