Sudden-Death Defense : Volunteers, Community Rally to Save 49er Football Program

California State University, Long Beach, is almost deserted now.

Finals are over and classes are out until January. One night earlier this week, the campus was dark except for a girls volleyball tournament in the school gym.

In a lighted executive conference room on the third floor of the administration building, however, a tournament of a different sort was taking place. The players were eight students seated around a large circular table with their fingers on telephone dials. Their adversary was time. The goal of the game: raise enough money to save the university’s 49er football team before it becomes history.

The rules were set by university President Stephen Horn on Nov. 25 when he gave the campus and the community until Dec. 31 to raise $300,000 in cash or see the football program dismantled. By June of 1988, he said, they would have to raise an additional $500,000, to be matched each year thereafter.

The result has been an outpouring of fund-raising efforts ranging from golf events, money donated by local businesses and an upcoming celebrity sports luncheon, to the ongoing telephone campaign in the administration building. As of Wednesday, according to the athletic department, which is coordinating the campaign, the efforts had raised $134,946 in cash, with another $56,250 pledged.

“I think we’re going to make it,” said John Kasser, athletic director.

Countered a skeptical John Beljan, vice president for academic affairs, “I feel that it will be difficult for the community to raise the $300,000 by Dec. 31 and very difficult . . . to support the athletic program at the half-million mark each year thereafter.”

It was Beljan, who initially recommended that Horn suspend the football program, a recommendation that stands.

“I would personally like to see football preserved, but my first responsibilities are to the academic and fiscal integrity of the university,” Beljan said. “I feel that suspending football would be in the institution’s financial interest at this time.”

The recommendation, he said, was made after a review of the athletic program revealed a $719,000 deficit over the last five years, in addition to a deficit of about $370,000 incurred this year alone.

Kasser blames the program’s financial woes on a combination of poor attendance at football games (averaging 7,800 people this year in a 13,000-seat stadium) and general lack of community support, coupled with increasing operating costs, especially in the form of athletic scholarships.

(Long Beach football Coach Mike Sheppard, 34, quit Tuesday to accept a similar position at the University of New Mexico. Larry Reisbig, 47, a Long Beach administrative assistant and running back coach, was named to replace Sheppard.)

University officials say the athletic deficit is unrelated to a $1.6-million deficit discovered earlier this year in the university’s overall budget, which necessitated a $900,000 loan from the chancellor’s office and resulted in curtailment of Horn’s fiscal authority. And participants in the phone drive routinely answer queries by telling would-be contributors that there is no connection between the two deficits and that once the initial $300,000 is raised the program will be self-sustaining.

But according to Kasser, the football crisis was created in part by the loss of more than $200,000 in university funds held back as a direct result of the institution’s larger financial crunch. Like virtually every other non-academic department on campus, athletics--which in recent years has received about $300,000 annually in state-allocated money--suffered major cuts as a result of the university’s attempt to balance its budget. And even if the $300,000 is raised in time, he said, it will be used only to relieve this year’s athletic deficit and not the $719,000 deficit accrued over the past five years.

“We’re trying to make each year have a balanced budget” through community fund raising, corporate endowments and increased gate receipts, Kasser said. The cumulative $719,000 deficit, he said, will be paid back “gradually” from sources as yet unknown.

The situation has renewed longstanding criticisms of Horn’s management of campus fiscal affairs.

“Up to this point he has had fairly good support from the community,” said LeRoy Hardy, a retired political science professor and one of Horn’s harshest critics. “This (situation) brings it down to the community level and the civic leaders are beginning to see his incompetence.”

Bob Livingstone, a 23-year-old finance major, went as far as pledging $30 to the Save-the-49ers campaign, contingent on Horn’s removal as president. “I’m hoping other people will get the same idea,” he said. But the president denies responsibility for the possible demise of 49er football, laying it instead at the feet of a non-supportive community. “I hope we make it,” he said recently regarding the fund-raising campaign.

And in most quarters, the community both on and off campus seems to be accepting that responsibility in a genuine effort to help.

“The loss of football would be devastating,” said Cynthia Willbanks, co-owner of Willbanks Carpet on Los Coyotes Diagonal, which until Dec. 28 will be donating $2 for every yard it sells--or about $3,000--to the 49er campaign. “Long Beach is a funny little community and we like having our home team. I hate sports myself, but it would just kill me if we were to lose our 49ers.”

Tom Smith, manager of Arnold’s Family Restaurant on Atlantic Avenue, said the restaurant will contribute nearly a dollar for every meal sold Saturday as an expression of its belief in the team.

And Dave Formella, sales director for Nance Travel Services on Broadway, which will be contributing 49 cents for each airline ticket sold until Wednesday, said a successful football team can enhance the image of Long Beach, thereby attracting more visitors to the city. Other fund-raisers include a $100-a-plate sports luncheon Tuesday; special events at many golf courses; bars contributing part of their happy-hour profits; hotels donating 49 cents per occupied room, and a computer company giving $49 on the purchase of a computer by any customer who mentions 49er football.

And, of course, there is the telephone campaign.

Since beginning its work Dec. 7, said Janice Hatanaka, director of the university’s annual fund drive, the battery of student callers--working five nights a week from a list of about 8,000 alumni--has elicited slightly more than $31,000 in pledges. Reading from a script, the students--some of whom are paid employees who have been involved in previous campus fund-raising efforts--instruct supporters to send contributions directly to a trust fund at Queen City Bank. All proceeds will be returned if the team is not saved.

“Having a football team improves the value of your degree,” said Nancy Bailey, 21, a marketing major and one of several members of the university’s marching band who volunteered for telephone service. “It brings the name of the school to light; people are a lot more likely to hear about your football team than (they are) your economics department.”

The team “is really good for the reputation of the school,” said Don Garcia, 22.

But veterans of previous campaigns say it is more difficult eliciting contributions for football than for some other causes. While about 40% of those contacted by telephone for the annual fund drive agree to contribute, the success rate for football has slipped from an initial 33-35% to about 20% in recent days, said Hatanaka.

“A lot of alumni would rather support academics,” said Chris Popma, 21, a finance major who’s solicited contributions for various academic departments for nearly three years.

And so the vigil continues as fund raisers throughout the city enter the final days of their race against time.

“I haven’t missed a home game in five years,” Bailey said during a brief respite between calls. “This is very close to my heart.”