Notebook / Ray Ripton : Coach Talks of Quick Revival of Oiler Football Program

It’s not an easy task to bring back a football program after a school has dropped it.

But Steve Bresnahan, new head football college at West Los Angeles College, doesn’t think it will take a strong dose of smelling salts to revive that school’s program, dormant for two seasons.

Bresnahan, 38, an assistant coach at Cal State Long Beach for the last four years, will not officially become the WLAC coach until July, but he is already moonlighting at his new job, holding organizational meetings with Jim Raack, WLAC athletic director.

And he likes what he has seen by moonlight.

“It’s certainly not going to be as easy as if (the school) had an established program,” he said. “But all the information I have is positive.

“The hard part will be getting (assistant) coaches. I don’t think that getting the players excited will be tough. I think the college has a lot to offer.”

WLAC dropped football and baseball in May, 1986, because of financial problems and layoffs of teachers and coaches in the Los Angeles Community College District. Other community colleges followed suit, trimming various sports from their programs.

But last February, Dr. Linda Thor, WLAC president, announced that the school would field a football team next fall and said that the game “is a significant student activity.”

Bresnahan, who coached strong Lakewood High School teams for four years before going to Cal State Long Beach, said he thinks the district has learned that the athletic cutbacks had been harmful.

When the district “decided not to continue with a full complement of athletic programs, I think it hurt.” Bresnahan said. He said he believes the district found out that “athletics is an important part” of a good educational program.

Raack said that Bresnahan’s appointment may be late for recruiting WLAC Oilers but that, even “at this late date, Los Angeles has plenty of athletes available.” He said that is particularly true “at a community college, where a player’s commitment doesn’t start till the first day school starts.”

He said the school plans to hire five paid part-time assistant football coaches and will have a full-time trainer.

Raack said several players who were freshmen on WLAC’s last team in 1985 are part-time students and are eligible to play for another season.

The 1988 Oilers also should have one player who could be the nucleus for a strong team. Raack said that 6-7, 290-pound offensive lineman Eduardo Vega, from Hamilton High School, has enrolled at WLAC after attending UC Berkeley and should be out for football. Vega is also a place-kicker.

Bresnahan will meet prospective players at 1 p.m. today on the football field.

The Oilers will play in the South Division of the Western State Conference, which includes Santa Monica College. Other division teams are Santa Barbara City, Pierce, Los Angeles Valley, Bakersfield and Compton. WLAC has also scheduled games with three teams in the WSC North Division: Glendale, Ventura and Moorpark.

WLAC will open the season Sept. 10 with a non-conference game at Victor Valley.

Ann Meyers, a four-time All-American in basketball at UCLA, is the first woman and one of six persons who will be inducted into the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame at a 6 p.m. dinner Sunday at James E. West Alumni Center.

Other former UCLA athletes (and a former administrator) who will be inducted are Sam Balter, a 1936 gold medalist Olympian in basketball and longtime sportscaster; All-American and all-pro running back Mel Farr; Robert A. Fischer, who served 16 years as an assistant athletic director and was athletic director from 1980 to 1983; Marques Johnson, the first winner of the Wooden Award and college basketball player of the year in 1977, and C. K. Yang, a silver medalist in the 1960 Olympics.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar of the Lakers, one of 47 other members of the hall, and sculptor John Petek will present to the hall a proof of the sculpture, “Kareem,” which will go on permanent display.