CSUN Players Cared Enough This Year Not to Laugh It Off

A year ago, Cal State Northridge running back Mike Kane complained that nobody seemed to care when the Matadors lost.

And he was talking about his teammates.

It wasn’t whether they won or lost that counted, but how they played afterward. It wasn’t a team of animals. It was a team of party animals. The bus rides home were full of laughs, win or lose.

There were no laughs Saturday at Cal State Sacramento when CSUN lost to the Hornets, 21-17, the winning touchdown coming with just 28 seconds to play.

Kane stood outside the locker room and sobbed, tears streaming from his red eyes.

Other teammates were crying openly as well. No partying tonight. This was a team that had learned to care.

Kane was crying over the end of the season and the end of Northridge’s hopes of winning the Western Football Conference.

But it was more than that. Kane, the leading rusher in school history, was about to take off his Matador uniform for the final time after completing his senior season.

“I loved every minute of my career. I wouldn’t have changed it for anything, but it was Coach Burt who made the past mean that much, if that makes any sense,” said Kane, referring to first-year head coach Bob Burt. “His coming here meant the world to me. If we had had a bad year like before, my whole career here would have meant nothing. This made the whole four years worthwhile.”

Everybody connected with the Northridge program marks the end of the who-gives-a-damn attitude with the arrival of Burt, who replaced Tom Keele after last season’s 4-7 finish. Burt took over a program that had produced just five winning seasons in 16 years.

The Matadors finished the year 8-3, tying their best previous mark, and, earlier this season, were ranked eighth among NCAA Division II schools, their highest position ever in those rankings.

“He’s very up, very positive,” said CSUN Athletic Director Bob Hiegert of Burt. “He created a nice congenial atmosphere which was a welcome change. The kids knew where the line was and that they’d better not cross it. He has given us respectability.

“We are very delighted. We made the change in coaches as soon as we could.

“Our recruiting should be up. We won’t have to go around explaining things to get the door open. After this season, doors will open.”

Nobody knows how difficult it was to bang on those doors a year ago better than Mark Banker, CSUN’s defensive coordinator. It was Banker and offensive coordinator Rich Lopez, the two holdovers from the Keele staff, who were given the task of recruiting after last season. Keele was gone, Burt had not yet been hired.

“Last year, we were just trying to see if we could get a team,” Banker said. “And if so, for who? And once we knew for who, would we, the assistants, be around?”

Last season, Banker felt that perhaps his Matador defenders were just a happy bunch who couldn’t get mean.

“They are the same nice guys they were a year ago,” Banker said Saturday. “But now, they have a winning attitude. You always want more, but we have achieved the thing we wanted by establishing some credibility. Now we have some direction.”

The man who supplied that direction is already looking for more.

“This team was trying to do something nobody thought it could do and it came up four points short,” Burt said. “We’ll be back.

“Don’t feel bad for me. I’ve been beaten before. Feel bad for the seniors on this team. Eight and three is not bad, but three quarters of this team will be back and they have good memories.”

Amidst the tears of Saturday’s crusher, it was Hiegert who lent a little perspective.

“When we looked at this year,” he said, “we just wanted to get close to .500. If we had been 6-5 or 7-4, it would have been a great year for us.

“We are very disappointed in today’s game, but this team needs to be congratulated. We are going to play good, solid football from here on out. We have gotten that fact established.”

Saturday, that fact didn’t help soothe the Matadors.

Once the tears had dried, there was a flight home to catch. You can bet there would be no laughs on board.