Pierce Athletes: All Bulked Up With No Place to Go

Rich Lawson spoke more in disbelief than in anger, more in disappointment than in vengeance.

“A lot of the kids were already working out with weights and they were running,” Lawson said about the Pierce football program. “The school just strung them along and the kids waited it out.”

And then Pierce dropped the program.

“There’s thousands of kids playing football here in the Valley,” said Lawson, who was a Pierce assistant football coach. “When you take away their opportunity to play football and to get a shot at a free education at a major university, the only people who suffer are the kids.”

On May 27, Pierce eliminated its football and basketball programs because the school’s budget couldn’t handle 11 sports as it did last year, according to Pierce President David Wolf. Three days later, O’Connor resigned.

Lawson said that although he understands Pierce’s financial problems, he thinks the college had other options after successful football Coach Jim Fenwick left. Fenwick resigned in February to become an assistant at Cal State Northridge.

“A lot of good coaches leave athletic programs,” Lawson said. “But when they do, an athletic director should start hustling to get a new coach right away.”

Under community college hiring rules, Pierce would have had to appoint an existing instructor as football coach. But a day after the elimination of the football program, Wolf told The Times: “It’s my feeling it would not be good judgment to make a football coach of a swimming coach just to field a team.”

Fenwick had no comment today.

By dropping football and basketball, Athletic Director Bob O’Connor said, Pierce would be able to field nine sports: track, cross country, volleyball, tennis, golf, swimming, water polo, wrestling and, possibly, baseball.

“I don’t understand what they mean when they say they don’t have the money to run a program,” Lawson said.

Lawson received support for his argument from the county Grand Jury, which on Wednesday released the results of a six-month management audit of the Los Angeles Community College District. The report indicated that Pierce was one of only two colleges in the nine-school district that generates revenue.

The audit blamed the board of trustees and top administrators for the district’s financial woes, concluding that the district could have avoided financial troubles as early as 1980 had it ordered belt-tightening measures.

Regardless of the Grand Jury’s findings, Pierce will not field football or basketball programs next school year, but the sports likely will return to the Woodland Hills campus. O’Connor said that retirements over the next year will create openings and that laid-off instructors may be rehired. Said O’Connor: “Within two years, we’ll be back in the football business.”

Meanwhile, Lawson and Chad Fenwick, a former Pierce assistant and Jim Fenwick’s younger brother, will coach an American-style football team in Finland. Fred Grimes, another Pierce assistant, has been hired as football coach at North Hollywood High.

Hiring line: Lee Smelser, the College of the Canyons basketball and softball coach, has taken over as the school’s athletic director. He replaces Mike Gillespie, the new USC baseball coach.

Who will replace Gillespie as the Cougars’ baseball coach is another question.

Asked if he favored anyone in particular, Gillespie said, “I’d like to see Len Mohney get the job.”

Mohney, who played for Gillespie at Canyons, was his assistant at the college for 11 years. Gillespie would like to have Mohney as an assistant at USC but must wait to meet with university athletic administrators before any assistant coaches can be hired. Gillespie expressed interest in Hart High Coach Frank Sanchez, who played for Gillespie at Canyons, as another assistant coach.

Cal State Northridge pitcher Kathy Slaten, who led the Lady Matadors to the NCAA Division II championship softball game in each of her four seasons, has had her jersey number retired by Coach Gary Torgeson.

Slaten, who wore No. 44, led CSUN to three national championships and one second-place finish, was named All-American four years in a row. Slaten won 123 games during her career, including 97 shutouts and 21 no-hitters.