Northridge Recruiters Finally Materialize in Valley

Harry Welch, football coach at Canyon High, was talking about recruiting when he stumbled upon a revelation.

“You know,” he said, “I think I’ve seen Tom Keele here more times this season than I did in all his years at Northridge.”

It is the opinion of several Valley-area high school coaches that Cal State Northridge has more actively recruited the Valley under first-year Coach Bob Burt than it ever did under Keele, who was CSUN’s head coach for seven years.

Keele, now an assistant coach at Weber State, has been at Canyon recruiting Trevor Doyle, a wide receiver and defensive back.

But Northridge has been everywhere. Or so it seems to many Valley coaches.

“They are reaching out to the high schools,” Welch said. “Rich Lopez has been out here two or three times since September. Before that, we’d gone three or four years without seeing a Northridge coach out here.”

Lopez, CSUN’s offensive coordinator and a former Keele assistant, disputed Welch’s statement but said he agreed Northridge coaches have been more visible around Valley-area high school campuses this year. One reason can be explained with simple mathematics, Lopez said.

“It’s the difference between 4 and 10,” he said. “We have more coaches recruiting this year. All 10 of us are assigned to six or seven Valley schools. Before, we only had four coaches recruiting.”

The high school coaches tend to credit another difference: Burt.

“There is a definite difference since he took over,” Thousand Oaks Coach Bob Richards said. “We’d call them before about a player and they’d never even come and look at him.”

Richards used Mike Trevathan, an All-Valley receiver in 1985, as an example. “Trevathan ended up signing with a Division 1-AA school last season and he was interested in going to Northridge,” Richards said. “But when we called over there they said they weren’t interested.”

Trevathan redshirted at Montana in 1986.

This year, Richards said several Thousand Oaks players have taken trips to Northridge and all came away impressed.

Last spring, shortly after Burt was hired, Northridge coaches were sent to numerous Valley high schools on recruiting and public relations visits. And during the season last fall, Northridge coaches regularly attended Valley-area high school games.

Northridge didn’t want to miss anyone from the Valley it might be able to sign “because this is home,” Lopez said.

Northridge, which has already enrolled six community college players and a four-year college transfer, would like to divide the rest of its scholarship allotment among 12 high school players. Burt said Northridge has evaluated dozens of Valley-area players, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that CSUN will sign more than a couple.

“If we could take the 12 best high school guys from the San Fernando Valley, we’d have it wired,” Burt said. “Unfortunately, there are a few other schools out there that recruit this area, too.

“You recruit what you need. We’re not looking at any wide receivers or defensive backs at all from the high schools, and there are several good ones in this area.” He would not divulge his recruiting list for this story.

Northridge’s improved visibility in recruiting within the Valley-area doesn’t guarantee that more local players will be listed on its roster. In 1984, Keele’s last season, 23% of the players on the Matador roster said they lived in the Valley. Burt said the percentage of area players coming into the program this year will probably be slightly lower.

For this year, Burt intends to make inroads. Contacts with the players and coaches are as important as signings, he said.

“That way they know we’re paying attention,” Burt said. “Whether the coaches agree with our evaluation of their players is another story. They’re not the ones who are going to get fired if I don’t win.”

Northridge, which was 8-3 in Burt’s first season after a 4-7 record in 1985, has been competing against larger schools in the recruiting wars. Burt said one lineman that visited the school last week had just returned from a recruiting trip to Nebraska.

“They’re going after Division I players,” Taft Coach Tom Stevenson said of the Matadors. “They may not get them, but at least they’re giving it a shot. You never know you can’t get someone until you try. And they are definitely trying.”

Stevenson said as many as three Taft players--linebacker Michael Johnson and defensive backs Darryle Smith and O’Shun Pierre--might attend Northridge and play football as walk-ons.

“I think more and more players will consider doing the same thing whereas before I’m not sure it was even considered,” Stevenson said. “It’s becoming known as a football school as well as a good place for academics.

“It’s a good school, No. 1, and it’s a chance for those guys to play football and maybe earn a scholarship down the line.”

Northridge will find out what its recruiting effort accomplished sometime after Wednesday, the first day high school players can sign a letter of intent.