49er Athletic Gloom Spreads Like Red Ink

Spring brightens the campus of California State University, Long Beach, and gives no hint of the gloom that shrouds athletics there.

Sports are in trouble. There is not enough money to support them.

And matching the hardness of the times are the feelings of some 49er boosters, who claim that university administrators have lied to them about being committed to a high-quality athletic program.

President Stephen Horn and John R. Beljan, vice president of academic affairs, say they support athletics but can’t make commitments because of the university’s financial state. They maintain that they want to continue with a Division I-A athletic program but it depends on whether large numbers of people suddenly attend games and give large amounts of money.

Scholarships must be paid with community donations or gate receipts, and CSULB has never had a high level of either. Football and men’s basketball have not done what they are supposed to: produce revenue. Attendance for football (7,844 average the last three seasons) is the lowest among Division I-A universities and the 1,839 average over the same time in men’s basketball is among the lowest.

Football was salvaged--for the time being--by $300,000 in community donations during a frantic drive last December. Horn had threatened last Nov. 25 to drop the sport if the money, needed to pay for scholarships and ease an athletic department deficit, was not raised.

The drive, which raised twice as much money as had ever been raised in any year, ended in a euphoria that has evaporated.

John Kasser, the athletic director who led the drive, resigned March 4. His successor, 39-year-old Corey Johnson, who had been assistant athletic director at the University of Miami, was not the boosters’ choice because he was from outside the area.

Two weeks ago, Beljan suspended the track and cross-country programs to further reduce expenses.

And Thursday, Johnson said that Joe Harrington of George Mason College in Virginia will be the new men’s basketball coach. That is expected to be an unpopular choice. “Who? From where?” asked one booster, who felt that former 49er star Ed Ratleff should have been selected.

Fed up, the men who contribute money and raise it, say they are in no mood to give or raise more.

What has to be raised is $500,000, which was included in Horn’s ultimatum, and it has to be in by July 1, 1988, in order to continue football.

According to Matt Coffey, assistant athletic director for business affairs, dramatic attendance increases are needed in football and basketball to make even a dent in the budget deficit.

“What it comes down to is winning some men’s basketball games,” Coffey said.

And university officials now say that $250,000 may have to be added to the $500,000 fund-raising effort because the California State University system wants to shift the salaries of five CSULB athletic administrators from state funds to the athletic department’s budget.

“We’re constantly the laughingstock of the athletic world,” said Don Dyer, who has resigned as president-elect of the 49er Athletic Foundation. “It’s always crisis after crisis.”

Dyer, an attorney, sat with Bill Ridgeway, an architectural designer who also has quit the foundation, in Ridgeway’s loft-office in Naples on a recent morning and described the frustrations of backing CSULB sports. Both graduated from the university in the 1960s and have long been main fund-raisers for the athletic department.

“I would be embarrassed to ask anyone for a penny now,” Ridgeway said. “I feel I’ve been deceived, lied to and used.”

Dyer and Ridgeway said they resigned from the foundation because they were upset about how the new athletic director was chosen.

“We had a meeting with Dr. Beljan and were promised that the top emphasis would be on a local person who could raise money in the community, that no assistant athletic directors would be considered and that the selection would be done by April 1,” Dyer said.

But two area candidates, Riverside City College President Charles Kane and Dick Perry, a former USC athletic director, withdrew because they said it was apparent a decision was not going to be reached by April 1. Perry was named athletic director at University of California, Riverside, on April 3.

“They missed the deadline because they had to have two more interviews, both with assistant A.D.’s (one was Johnson) from out of the area,” Dyer said. “They could have honored their commitment to (Kane and Perry) if they had kept their word and not done the last two interviews.”

Dyer and Ridgeway also blame the administration for a lack of long-term sports planning.

“The reason for poor attendance is our yo-yo approach to athletics,” Dyer said. “We’ve had three basketball coaches, three football coaches and three athletic directors in the last five years,” Dyer said. “What do they expect the community to do? There’s no stability, no long-range planning. And then when something happens, they blame the community. It’s time to place the blame on the people who are running that program.”

Added Ridgeway, “If we’re going to have a program, we should have the best program, the best athletic director, the best coaches. The size and location of the school warrants those things. Then the community would get behind the school.”

Dyer and Ridgeway believe the university wants to get rid of football, which has a $4-million annual budget.

“An awful lot of people think that the $300,000 figure was picked because the administration did not think there was any chance it could be raised, and when it was raised it created major problems for them because now they can’t drop football,” Dyer said.

The suspension of track surprised and angered both men.

“They said at our last meeting they would consult us at least six months before they would actually withdraw any sports,” Ridgeway said.

Ridgeway said he is in no hurry to return to the foundation, although he cooked hamburgers at the 49er spring football game last Saturday.

“Oh, I’ll go back some day,” he said. “But there will have to be a change in the administration and a five-year plan. Not one person in the administration has asked me to reconsider. They don’t care.”

Johnson said he would try to win back Dyer, Ridgeway and other former foundation members. “I definitely feel they’re a part of the program,” Johnson said.

John Beljan, who will be 57 next month, came to CSULB from Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital in Philadelphia last summer, about the time Long Beach revealed a $1.6-million deficit in its overall budget. Beljan has emerged as a major figure in determining the direction of 49er athletics, and his main job is trying to disentangle the university from its money mess.

Is he a sports fan?

“Sure,” Beljan said. “My wife can’t pull me away from the tube in the fall when the football games are on.”

A former surgeon, Beljan has written scores of articles, including “The Effect of Quantity of Dietary Calcium on Maintenance of Bone Integrity in Mature White Leghorn Chickens.” In his most recent piece, which appeared in the Long Beach Press-Telegram, he wrote that CSULB “suffers from chronic financial anemia, and I am expected to treat it.”

Beljan made the following observations during an interview with The Times:

“Sports are an area of great general interest and have high visibility. Other parts of the university similarly need continuing support. The university needs balance throughout its operations, and our fundamental goal is student education and I have to protect that as best I can.”

“To be truly successful you need a program that raises $1 million or $2 million the way (California State University, Fresno) does. Our sports department is coming in with a deficit budget, and as a prudent administrator I can’t permit that to happen.”

“I don’t think either the president or I would want to see football dropped, but if it meant balancing a program in the university, then I think one has to consider suspension. Football is a heavily subsidized program and will continue to be until attendance and other activities can bring in the revenues to sustain it. Even in winning days, attendance was relatively low.”

“We suffer because the California State University system is funded at a much lower level than the University of California system. We’re trying to do more with less.”

“We want to protect our Division I-A status if we can. We would not save any money if we moved from Division I-A to Division II. We would save money (by going to) Division III because of fewer coaches salaries and fewer grants in aid. But the bottom line is, if possible, we have to maintain the I-A classification.”

The 49ers are down to 16 sports, eight for men and eight for women, the minimum the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. requires for I-A status. “We don’t intend to (drop another sport),” Beljan said, “because after we’ve gotten past some of these larger-dollar sports there isn’t much left for further savings.”

“We need to look at strategic planning for the short term and the long term. What we’re doing is knee-jerk reaction and we’ve got to get out of that. But until we establish priorities for the institution and where we want to go and how we want to get there, we’re going to be in this kind of problem.”

Beljan also said he had not deceived anyone as to his committee’s search for an athletic director. He said, “We agreed we’d look for somebody with experience, ideally that of an A.D., and that it would be useful for that person to be familiar with this area and that could mean a local person.”

“I think they hear what they want to hear,” Beljan said of the boosters. “They obviously are unaware of what time frame it takes for a national search, which I delivered in record time.”

Beljan had said during the search that his April 1 deadline might be missed by a few days. Johnson’s selection was announced April 6.

“I wrote letters to every Division I and II athletic director looking for recommendations,” Beljan said. “I expect to give people at least a week to respond. A series of candidates was identified and brought in for interviews. The argument was that I should have suggested to the president that he cut a deal before all of those people were in. That is unethical, unprofessional and would not be living up to the policy of equal opportunity.”

Beljan also said that there was no promise to consult foundation members before a sport would be dropped. “That was only in the context of football,” he said.

Beljan, who said he is concerned by the resignation of foundation members, said he believes that the $500,000 to $750,000 fund-raising goal is attainable.

“It depends on how many of these people (boosters) feel that they’ve been wronged and if they are willing to try to move again in a constructive way,” he said. “I think we have a hell of a good new athletic director and if they give him half a chance, it can be done. But if they’re going to sabotage it, that’s a different game. I hope he wins these guys back and they give him a fair shake and let him try to bring a Phoenix up.”

“Financially, the impact will be very minimal, but the emotional impact is major,” CSULB track Coach Ralph Lindeman said. It had been a week since he was told his sport would be suspended and the shock and anger had yet to wear off.

“I will have to move my family,” he said.

The decision to suspend track and cross-country is projected to save $125,000 to $150,000 a year. Beljan said track was the next-largest dollar item after football and basketball.

“I have 50 student-athletes and now they’re looking to go to a different school,” Lindeman, 36, said. “And for three coaches, we’re out of a job June 30, not because we haven’t done a good job--we have done a good job, we have run a clean program.

“Tell me to cut my travel budget, I can live with that,” Lindeman went on. “Cut back our salaries, but don’t cut our entire program. The administration needs to take a look at other programs and money they spend on out-of-state recruiting, men’s and women’s basketball. That won’t affect the quality of the team, you just work harder to recruit locally. Cut us back on coaches going to clinics, athletic directors going to conventions. I don’t think the administration did a good job of analysis of the situation.”

It will be a long time before Lindeman forgets the day he got the news.

“I was speechless,” he said. “It was the coldest, tersest meeting I’ve ever been in. The rug was pulled out . . . It hits me a little more each day.”