COLLEGE NOTEBOOK : Lord Knows, Stem Keeps the Faith at Master’s
Randy Stem, first-year coach at The Master’s College, is not a typical basketball coach. But then, The Master’s is hardly a typical college.
Formerly known as L. A. Baptist, the school is a Christian college. Students must sign a “profession of faith” before they are accepted.
Rules at the school reflect the morals it teaches. Women must wear dresses to class. Students must attend church twice on Sunday. Premarital sex is not allowed. Alcohol and drugs are forbidden.
So let it be written, so let it be done.
Stem seems to fit in at The Master’s. He moved to the Newhall campus from Tennessee Temple, a Baptist college in Chattanooga. Stem’s soft, Southern accent lends itself to an organ accompaniment. When he talks, you expect to hear, “Now friends, are you troubled?” right along with discussions of full-court zone defenses.
And Stem says unabashedly, “We represent the Lord Jesus. We don’t play for ourselves. We play to glorify God.”
Certainly, there was no glory in a 1-11 league record, which is what the Mustangs managed a year ago in the NAIA’s District III.
“We’re not going to make bones about it,” says John Zeller, The Master’s athletic director, who also moved to the school last summer from Tennessee Temple. “We want to win. That’s it. We want to win national championships. That’s what we’re shooting for.”
Realistically, for that to come to pass, The Master’s must recruit and sign high-level basketball talent, a fact not lost on Stem.
“We are going for the Christian athletes, and they are out there. Right now, I’ve got a list of 150 players we are contacting,” Stem says.
“For instance, I know of a 6-4 junior college All-American--he’s just out there waiting. And I talked to a 6-10 guy who’s in a Division I program who thought he isn’t being treated well there. I think he’ll consider us seriously. He’s got a friend who goes here.”
Stem wouldn’t name the players, but he did say they are in Tennessee and North Carolina.
“You’ve got to have two dominant players to do well,” the coach says. “Right now, we have support players. I need a player who can score 18 points a game.
“And I’m looking for a 6-9 athlete who believes in God who can handle the ball.”
What would happen if Stem found a great player, God forbid, who was not a believer?
“I’d try to share the faith with him,” he says. “I’d love to see him as a Christian.”
He would also love to see him high above the rim. Praise the Lord and throw the outlet pass.
Actually, Stem says that being at a Christian school helps rather than hinders his recruiting efforts. The Master’s president, John MacArthur, is an evangelist whose radio broadcasts are transmitted around the South.
According to Zeller, the school will significantly increase scholarships during the next year in both basketball and baseball. Clearly, The Master’s is aware that athletes cannot live by bread alone.
Over the recent holidays, Stem says he took just two days off. The rest of the time was spent scouting high school games around Southern California.
In a way, Stem appears strangely out of place in Los Angeles. Born and raised in Murfreesboro, Tenn., he’s a good ol’ boy in the finest black-eyed-pea tradition. He first became involved in coaching, appropriately enough, when he was asked to coach a church team.
“I went crazy about it. I was hooked on it from the beginning,” he says.
He coached at a high school in Tennessee for seven years before hitching up with Tennessee Temple as an assistant. Over the past five seasons, Temple averaged 27 wins a season.
Stem came to The Master’s because Zeller had been contacted by MacArthur. The college president asked Zeller if he needed a basketball coach.
Says Stem: “A year ago at this time, if I was told I’d be living in California now, I’d have said, ‘You’re nuts.’
“I would’ve been head coach at Tennessee Temple this year, if I’d stayed there, because Ron Bishop retired.”
Bishop was the head coach at Temple.
“It’s hard to explain, but the Lord wanted me here. Besides, they were cutting scholarships at Tennessee Temple,” Stem says.
In his first year at The Master’s, Stem has struggled to a 5-10 record. The Mustangs have lost five straight. After Tuesday night’s loss to Azusa Pacific, Stem seemed particularly distressed. After leading by nine points early in the second half, his team gave up 52 second-half points and lost by 15.
Still, Stem says he’s glad he’s at The Master’s.
“If we keep losing, I’ll go nuts. But I’m glad I’m here. Zeller and I are just old country bumpkins. We’re in hog heaven.”
Add Stem: When asked if he thought God kept an eye on the scoreboard, Stem said: “I think He does intervene sometimes. I’m not afraid to pray for a win. No. I pray all the time. I say, ‘Lord, we need some help tonight.’ I’ve prayed to God to help a player’s nerves late in a ball game at the free throw line. Some people don’t believe the Bible. They don’t believe that God intervenes. But, sometimes, He does.”
Cal State Northridge is still conducting interviews in its search for a new coach. Athletic Director Bob Hiegert and Sam Winningham, chairman of the department of physical education and athletics, were to speak with four of nine finalists--chosen from 40 applicants--this week at the NCAA convention of football coaches in New Orleans.
CSUN plans to announce its choice at a news conference next Friday.
Tom Keele last month was fired as CSUN head coach after seven seasons.
The CSUN swim team, Division II national champion last season, is off to a good start this season with a 5-0 record. Coach Pete Accardy’s swimmers return to the pool this weekend, after a month off, for the General Automation Invitational at Heritage Park in Irvine.
Cal Lutheran basketball player Darren Ranck missed the first few games of the season with a neck injury, but the sophomore guard from Ventura has returned to action and is the Kingsmen’s leading scorer, averaging 11.2 points a game.
The 6-4 Ranck scored 20 points in the Kingsmen’s 84-80 loss to West Coast Christian last Saturday in the NAIA District III conference opener. Ranck scored 18 points in the second half.
“I got my confidence back in that game,” said Ranck, who made 10 of 15 field goal attempts. “I just threw up a brick at the start of the second half and it went in. After that, I was relaxed.”
Ranck scored nine points Wednesday night in Cal Lutheran’s nonconference loss to Hawaii Hilo.
The loss was the Kingsmen’s eleventh consecutive defeat. Six losses were by four points or less.
When Hawaii Hilo visited Cal Lutheran in the last stop of the Vulcans’ four-game trip to the mainland, it was a homecoming of sorts for guard Gregg Scott, who graduated from El Camino Real High in 1982.
He is averaging eight points and four assists a game for the Vulcans. His return to Southern California on Wednesday night was the end of a long and sometimes painful road.
“I don’t think people understand how it is playing at a small school so far away from where you grew up,” Scott said. “Last night, I slept in my old bed at home, and it was the least-stressful night I’ve had in a while.”
And a lot less painful than the last few.
On Saturday, against Grand Canyon College of Arizona, Scott caught an elbow in the mouth that knocked out one tooth and loosened two others. He played against Cal Lutheran with the teeth wired back in place.
