VALLEY SPORTS : COLLEGE Digest : CLOSE-UP : CSUN Begins to Market Kane for Award

The Harlon Hill Award may not rank with the Heisman, Outland and Lombardi trophies, but it is being taken seriously at Cal State Northridge.

This is the first year that the award will be given to the top Division II football player, and Northridge is doing everything it can to see that senior tailback Mike Kane is the inaugural winner.

The award will be determined by a vote of sports information directors. The first vote will be by region, with the top two vote-getters in the South, East, Midwest and West areas qualifying for a nation-wide vote.

Northridge officially nominated Kane on Wednesday. A full-scale media blitz--at least by Division II standards--is set to follow.

From now until the award winner is announced on Dec. 11, all envelopes coming out of the CSUN sports information office will have stamped on them: “MIKE hurriKANE KANE, Harlon Hill Nominee and All-America candidate.”

Every Division II SID in the West Region has been added to the school’s mailing list and a packet with a two-color flyer and statistical package on Kane will be mailed next Friday. Rocky Railey, Northridge’s interim SID, estimated that the school will spend about $250 on the campaign. That doesn’t include the phone bill her office plans to run up while reminding every SID in the West of Kane’s statistics before the regional voting begins Nov. 7.

“We think Mike is the epitome of a good Division II football player,” said Bob Hiegert, Northridge athletic director. “He’s done so much for the football program that I would feel very badly if we didn’t push him for the award.”

Kane’s reaction?

“I can’t believe it,” he said. “It’s great. It makes me feel good that they would do all that for me.”