College Digest : OTHER SPORTS : McDowell’s Face Is Shattered in Scuffle, but His Promising Career Remains Intact

Christmas Eve at Jim and Judy McDowell’s home in Van Nuys is normally a roaring affair shared by family and friends. At the past few holiday gatherings, much of the conversation was concerned Jack McDowell, the youngest of the family and one of the best college baseball pitchers in the nation.

This year was a more somber McDowell Christmas.

Normally a pleasant looking 20-year-old, Jack, who will begin his third season in the starting rotation at Stanford, was sporting a facial bandage that looked more like a mask. The swelling around his eyes made him strain to keep them open. The color of his face ranged from a dark blue to flat black. The bandage covered more than 200 stitches that bond a gash stretching from above his right eye across the bridge of his broken nose.

At a party in Westwood on Dec. 23, McDowell was in the street saying goodby to friends when they saw a man kicking in the door of a young woman’s car, he said. McDowell, 6-5, 185, and a friend approached the man.

“He was freaking out,” McDowell said. “He threw a trash can at us.”

The trash can missed. But the man, who lives across the street from site of the party, went to the top of the stairs outside his apartment, grabbed a potted plant and threw toward the street, hitting McDowell in the face as he was about return to the party, McDowell said.

McDowell was taken by friends to St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, where he was treated and later released.

Ian Yoffie, 41, of West Los Angeles, was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon in connection with the incident, Los Angeles Police Department Detective Richard Zolkowski said. Yoffie is scheduled to be arraigned Jan. 14.

McDowell said he is expected to recover fully and is hopeful that he can work out with the Cardinal when he returns to school on Monday.

“What it did really was take away my chance to work out over the Christmas break,” he said.

McDowell, whose doctor said his nose was “shattered like an egg,” said his only apprehension as the season approaches is that he may get off to a slow start.

If such is the case, he may be hard pressed in his pursuit of two Stanford pitching records. Jeff Ballard holds the Stanford career record for most wins with 36. McDowell, who was also 11-4 in his first season, needs 15 to pass Ballard. He needs 100 strikeouts to break the school’s career record of 315, also held by Ballard. For McDowell, who was drafted out of high school by the Boston Red Sox, both records still appear to be in reach.

“I just hope this doesn’t get in the way,” he said. “Those records were made in four years. If I can break them this season, I will have done it in three.”

Last season, McDowell was 11-4 for Stanford and was a second-team All-American. He was also named to the All-Pacific 10 first team. He had 129 strikeouts in 136 innings and posted a 2.51 earned run average. He is a preseason All-American, according to Collegiate Baseball magazine.

At Notre Dame High in 1984, McDowell led his team to a 27-1 record and was the Southern Section Player of the Year.

Still waiting: The fact that Pierce College now has approval from the Los Angeles Community College District to transfer in full-time instructors to coach football and men’s basketball does not automatically mean both sports will be in place by the start of the 1986-1987 school year.

Pierce Athletic Director Marian McWilliams said last week that arranging the transfers figures to be a more difficult task than winning district approval was.

To bring in a full-time instructor to coach from any of the district’s nine colleges, Pierce must convince a member of its faculty to transfer to the school from which it selects its candidate. Pierce cannot force the transfer of any faculty, McWilliams said.

Pierce has contacted Steve Butler, an assistant coach at West Los Angeles, about its vacant football job. Jim Stephens, women’s basketball coach at Valley, has been contacted about the Pierce men’s position, but McWilliams said conversations with Stephens were only preliminary and that no decision on basketball would be made until football is resolved.

In addition, no work on arranging transfers will be done until Pierce President David Wolf returns from vacation next week, McWilliams said.

All of which leaves Pierce ready, willing but at the moment unable to reinstate its two most visible intercollegiate athletic programs.