College Division / Mitch Polin : It’s the Family Way at Claremont-Mudd

Jodie Burton, women’s basketball coach at Claremont-Mudd, admits her timing is a little off.

Burton, 34, is pregnant with her third child. And each of her children was born during the basketball season. Todd, 4, was born in February. John, 2, arrived in January.

Burton said the due date for her third child is Wednesday, the day after the team’s Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference opener against Redlands.

Burton, who has coached the team all along, said that assistant Julie Curtis will coach the team in her absence, but Burton expects to return a couple of weeks after the delivery. “I’ll take the baby to work with me, so I can be close to it,” she said.

Burton says the prospect of caring for a baby and coaching a basketball team would be difficult were it not for one not-so-small fact: Her husband, David Wells, is coach of the men’s team at Claremont-Mudd.

“I never would have thought that it would work, but from a family standpoint, it really helps,” Burton said. “It has turned out to be a very positive thing for us. We’re lucky that we have bosses that have been very supportive of us.”

Wells said: “Working at the same school allows us to have and raise a family. Being together, I can cover for her if she has something to do, and she can cover for me. . . . When you both coach basketball at the same school, you really have a tremendous flexibility that you couldn’t have working at two different jobs.”

Still, it has made for hectic times during the basketball season.

“It’s not exactly real good planning for two basketball coaches,” the 37-year-old Wells said.

Burton added: “It’s an experience, that’s for sure. It helps keep life lively.”

Not surprisingly, Wells said life is most difficult during the season.

“There are certain times of the year, usually from December through February, when we’re not together a lot,” he said. “She’s coaching her team and scouting and so am I. It’s not uncommon for us to have baby-sitters three or four nights a week, so the whole family is not together.”

Wells said that having a family would be impossible if they weren’t coaching at the same school. “We both have an understanding about the time it takes to do a good job,” he said.

It may sound like a difficult life style, but neither coach is complaining.

“There are pros and cons about it, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” Burton said. “I couldn’t stay home and be away from coaching basketball. It’s just not in me. . . . It helps me set my priorities right, and I think it has helped make me a better coach.”

It has certainly not hindered the success of the teams at Claremont-Mudd. The women’s team is 13-3, and the men are 12-3. Both have emerged as favorites to win the conference title.

This is Burton’s ninth season at Claremont-Mudd, and it’s the 14th for Wells, who guided his team to the conference title last year.

But for Burton, there will soon be a pregnant pause in her coaching career.

There are upsets, and there are upsets.

But Occidental College’s 66-56 victory over Biola in men’s basketball last Wednesday may go down as the biggest shocker of the season in college-division circles.

It may rank as one of the more surprising outcomes in recent seasons, for that matter.

After all, Biola went into the game ranked No. 3 in the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics with a 16-0 record. And that record included a victory over Northern Arizona, an National Collegiate Athletic Assn. Division I team, and four victories over NCAA Division II teams from the California Collegiate Athletic Assn.

Occidental had won two straight games and its own tournament before the game but had only a 7-6 record overall. So even Occidental Coach Bill Westphal was more than a little surprised by the victory.

“It really ranks among the very top,” Westphal said. “We’ve won bigger games, but as far as beating an undefeated, ranked team goes, this may have been the biggest.

“I felt that we had a chance going in, but it would have to be an awfully big win for us. . . . They’re not a team that beats themselves; and to beat them, you can’t make mistakes.”

It was not the best-played game for Biola. The Eagles made only 31.1% of their shots, perhaps partly because it was their fifth game in seven days. Center Paul Horn also missed the game because of a death in his family, and guard Jeff Martineau was slowed by an ankle sprain.

But that will not make it any the less memorable for Occidental.

College Division Notes

The Cal Poly Pomona men’s basketball team also pulled off a big upset in its CCAA season opener with a 79-67 victory over UC Riverside last week. Riverside, considered one of the teams to beat for the conference title, entered the game with a 10-2 record and the No. 8 ranking in NCAA Division II. Pomona was 5-8 and was picked to finish seventh in the CCAA. It was Pomona’s first victory over Riverside since the 1980-81 season.

Three teams from the CCAA are listed in Collegiate Baseball’s preseason Division II top 10. Cal State Dominguez Hills, which won the conference title for the second straight season and finished fifth in the Division II World Series, is ranked No. 4, Cal State Northridge is No. 6 and Cal Poly Pomona No. 7. Defending division champion Troy State of Alabama is No. 5, and perennial power Florida Southern is No. 1.

Defensive tackle Nate Rawlings, who was one of Azusa Pacific’s leaders with 40 tackles and 6 quarterback sacks even though he has only one arm, has been named the recipient of the 1987 Mainstream Milestones Award. The award, presented by the Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce and the Foundation on Employment and Disability, recognizes outstanding achievement among the disabled in the Los Angeles area. Rawlings, the first athlete to be honored in several years, will receive his award Wednesday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in the Music Center.

Rookie running back Christian Okoye of the Kansas City Chiefs, a former NAIA All-American at Azusa Pacific, and several former NAIA All-American track athletes from the school, will discuss the importance of fitness and nutrition for children during assemblies at Azusa elementary schools Wednesday and Friday. . . . John Nojima, an All-CCAA football guard last season at Dominguez Hills, has been named a winner of the first Woody Hayes Academic All-American Award. Awards are given the top male and female in each NCAA division. Nojima, who was an A student at Dominguez Hills and received an NCAA postgraduate scholarship last year, will receive his award at a banquet Friday in Columbus, Ohio.