Loyola Basks in Glory of Finest Sports Year

One morning during the NCAA baseball regional in Stillwater, Okla., Brian Quinn, who is completing his third year as Loyola Marymount athletic director, said over breakfast--with some wonder in his voice:

“I heard some people talking about us in the hotel. You know, people know who we are all over the country. People have heard of us this year.”

Loyola certainly had a successful season athletically and had by far its most visible season in the national sports consciousness and the media.

Most of the exposure came thanks to the best basketball team in school history, which won 28 games on the way to its first conference title in 27 years, then won an NCAA tournament game as well.

But the style of play was what made a national impression: The Lions led the country in scoring, routinely running up more than their average of 110 points, twice doing so on national television. Loyola’s appearances on ESPN and CBS were another landmark for the school.

Then the baseball team earned high national ratings and won two NCAA tournament games before being eliminated, finishing with 48 victories.

Both teams were ranked in the final Top 20 polls.

There were other, less publicized, successes as well:

* The women’s volleyball team got off to a slow start but finished fast to place second in the West Coast Athletic Conference.

* The women’s basketball team improved to a .500 mark and recorded its most wins ever, 15.

* The underdog men’s volleyball team pulled off one of the spring’s top upsets when it beat UC Santa Barbara, the eventual NCAA runner-up.

* And the men’s and women’s crew teams had winning seasons, with the women’s lightweight eight earning the top rating on the West Coast.

Quinn has talked about a five-year plan to increase funding of athletic scholarships and build up the less visible sports. He said this week that the school is “right on schedule.”

“I think baseball and basketball are solid as rocks, and volleyball is the one we’re addressing now. We plan to keep building on that. Women’s basketball is starting to take off. Our women’s softball team won 15 games after winning four the year before.”

But it was basketball that put the Lions on the map. By mid-season, Coach Paul Westhead’s feverish offense had made such an impression that a radio station in Baton Rouge, La., adopted the team, reporting scores and airing player interviews.

A station spokesman explained: “We’d see this team we never heard of scoring 120, 130 points and wonder what was going on. Then we discovered the team was coached by Paul Westhead, so we got even more interested.”

Much of the sports-minded population followed suit. By playoff time, Westhead had been interviewed by every major television network and cable, reporters from around the country were phoning for appointments and Loyola highlights were routinely being shown on the nightly news around Los Angeles.

There were plenty of highlights as Loyola completed a 14-0 conference mark, swept the postseason tournament and shattered virtually every scoring record:

* Sophomore Hank Gathers tied for the overall scoring lead in West Coast Athletic Conference and non-conference games.

* Bo Kimble led all scorers in conference play and totaled 68 points in two games against rival Pepperdine.

* Corey Gaines ranked among national leaders in assists and three-point shooting.

* Mike Yoest finished third in career scoring.

* The four were named to the 10-man all-WCAC, a conference record.

Quinn is so optimistic about the future of Loyola’s athletics that he barely blinked when baseball Coach Dave Snow, who took Loyola to two NCAA appearances in the last three years, suddenly resigned when the team returned from Oklahoma last week. Snow took a similar job at Long Beach State.

Quinn immediately began setting up interviews and fielding inquiries from interested coaches around the country and felt confident enough to say:

“What’s in place now is solid. We remain committed to a good baseball program. The program is not going to go down.”

He added that overall, “We’re getting better. We’ve got a way to go but it’s real positive.”

While Loyola’s athletic department is on the upswing, Cal State Dominguez Hills appears to be going in the opposite direction after several years of relative stability.

In overall team ratings compiled by the California Collegiate Athletic Assn., the Toros were a distant last in men’s and women’s totals.

Dominguez Hills doesn’t pretend to have a program with the scope of a large school such as Cal State Northridge or Cal State Los Angeles--both CCAA opponents whose enrollments are three to four times greater than Dominguez Hills’ 7,000--but the Toro teams have generally held their own in most sports and have won championships in men’s basketball, baseball and soccer.

But this season there were no championships and the only sport in which Dominguez Hills was a front-runner, women’s soccer, isn’t a conference sport.

The downturn also seemed to signal a mass departure from the athletic department, starting with Athletic Director Sue Carberry, whose resignation is effective this month. She’s moving to Northern California after presiding over what may prove to have been Dominguez Hills’ golden age in athletics.

Women’s basketball Coach Alice Textor, after seven frustrating years, is getting out of coaching for the moment.

Baseball Coach Andy Lopez, whose program has been as successful as any in Toros history--including a Division II World Series appearance in 1987-- resigned Wednesday for a similar job at Pepperdine.

That will leave basketball Coach Dave Yanai, soccer Coach Marine Cano and golf Coach John Johnson as the only members of the athletic department with proven coaching records in the CCAA, with openings still to fill for athletic director (an announcement is expected around June 15), and women’s basketball and baseball coaching positions.

The uncertainty of the baseball situation--the job will have to be posted and won’t be filled before mid-July--and the reluctance of recruits to sign until the coach is known won’t help the program, which went from first to last in the CCAA this spring and returns only a handful of players.

College Notes

Loyola basketball player Enoch Simmons, a fourth-round selection in last week’s baseball draft, signed this week with the Oakland A’s. The outfielder will report to the Arizona State League in Phoenix. He hopes to return to Loyola in the fall to play his last season of college basketball as well. . . . Dominguez Hills relief pitcher Chris Haslock was drafted on the 27th round by the San Diego Padres. The senior was assigned to Spokane. Dominguez Hills left-hander Bruce Vegely was drafted on the 30th round by the Angels and sent to Bend, Ore., in the Class A Northwest League. . . . Loyola’s final baseball statistics show several team records were set. Third baseman Don Sparks, who batted .405, set a mark with 105 hits. Outfielder Travis Tarchione finished with 102 hits. They’re the only Lions ever to reach triple figures in a season. The old mark of 92 was set by Scott Stout in 1982. . . . Sparks also had the second-best season total for runs batted in with 79. In the four-game NCAA regional, Sparks had 3 home runs and 11 runs batted in. Sophomore pitcher Darryl Scott set a season record for saves with 13. . . . Bruce Turner, a 6-foot-3 all-conference guard at Harbor College, has signed to play basketball at Cal State Los Angeles. Turner, a Locke High graduate, averaged 13 points and 6 assists as a sophomore for the Seahawks.