The Colleges : Loose Ends Foil Efforts to Secure Recruits

For junior college football coaches, commitments from recruits are about as solid as contracts that are periodically signed between a couple of guys named Steinbrenner and Martin.

They mean, in a word, nothing.

In the JCs, those who depend on June depth charts usually sink to great depths.

Coaches like to say they won’t comment on their top recruits for fear of an opponent swooping in to steal the players away.

Perhaps closer to the truth is that they don’t know who really will be suiting up on the first day of practice.

Chuck Ferrero, coach at Valley College, is one of the lucky few. He says about 80% of the players who say they’re going to play for Valley actually show up to work out.

“That doesn’t mean they all stay,” Ferrero is quick to point out. “Some check out the competition and decide they’d have a better chance somewhere else. There’s always some jumping around.”

The reason--at least in the L. A. Community College District--is that a half-dozen coaches are recruiting from the same talent pool. And that does not include coaches outside the L. A. district who choose to illegally recruit within the district.

“We’re like a bunch of piranha poured into the same bowl,” Ferrero said.

The situation is dramatized by the fact there is no way for a school to hold a player to his word. As a result, players often verbally commit to more than one school.

“It is very hard for a young man in high school to say no to a coach who wants an answer,” Coach Jim Bittner of Moorpark College said. “It is equally hard for them to call back and say that they have changed their mind. So they don’t.”

A letter of intent similar to those that high school athletes sign with four-year universities would solve much of the problem, Ferrero said. But currently there is no governing body with the manpower to enforce such a system.

At Moorpark, which is in the Ventura Community College District, Bittner has devised his own unofficial letter of intent. It says simply that the undersigned person has agreed to attend Moorpark and play football in the fall.

It is not a binding contract (“We try not to spend a lot of time explaining that,” Bittner says.), but the coach ceremoniously meets with the player and his parents to discuss academic and athletic alternatives before the letter is signed.

“The way we do it makes it more valid,” said Bittner, who is toting around 25 signed letters in his briefcase these days. “We need them to make plans so we can make plans.”

Moorpark and Ventura used to have formal letters of intent that were administered by the district, but since that program fell through Bittner has had success doing it his way. In the past three years, every player Bittner signed has honored the letter.

Would a similar system work in the L. A. district?

“All that is is a formalized handshake,” Ferrero said. “All that has to happen is one guy to ignore it and then you’re right back in the same boat. It would have to be a governed, binding, letter of the law with no slack.”

Prediction: Signs point to Cal State Northridge hiring former Pepperdine assistant Jim Gattis as baseball coach. The 35-year old former North Hollywood High and Valley College standout has many of the ingredients sought by Bob Hiegert, CSUN’s athletic director.

Gattis has coached championship teams in the minor leagues and is given much of the credit for recruiting and developing many of Pepperdine’s top players in the past four seasons.

Staff infusion: The athletic department is expanding at Cal State Northridge, and that is not taking into consideration the multipurpose athletics complex that is in the planning stages. The coaching and administrative staffs for athletics will grow 40.4% by 1992, according to a five-year plan formulated by school officials.

Northridge will have the equivalent of 29.7 full-time staff positions during the next school year. Over the next four years, that number should grow to 41.7.

CSUN, which plans to move into Division I in 1990, already has added several positions for the upcoming year, effective Sept. 1.

The salaries of Marwan Ass’ad, coach of the soccer team, and John Price, coach of the men’s volleyball team, have been upgraded from one-quarter time to half time.

Tony Veney, a part-time track and field assistant last season, has been hired full time. He will continue to work with the sprinters while also teaching and working as an administrator in the athletics department. Rick Gamboa, who coached the linebackers on CSUN’s football team the past two seasons while teaching at Franklin High in Los Angeles, also has been hired full time in a position similar to Veney’s. Both coaches also will work as minority recruiters for the school’s education equity program.

In addition, Jerry Campbell, part-time line coach for the football team the past two seasons, has been upgraded to a half-time coach. Extra hours also will be available to the training staff.

Gran is the man: Cal Lutheran, which struggled through a 5-6 football season in 1987, did so without an offensive coordinator. The Kingsmen remedied that situation early this week by hiring Ed Gran, 22, a former CLU player, for the position. Gran was a part-time assistant on Coach Bob Shoup’s staff last season.

Cal Lutheran will have new coordinators on both offense and defense next season. Gary Patterson, last season’s defensive coordinator, left CLU to accept a similar position at Pittsburg State, Kan. Patterson had been with the Kingsmen only one year after two seasons as an assistant at UC Davis.

Earlier this month, Kyle Tarpenning, a former Linfield (Ore.) College assistant, was hired to replace Patterson as the Kingsmen’s top defensive coach.

Add hires: Steve Gazzinga, who guided the Agoura High girls’ volleyball team to last season’s Southern Section 3-A Division title game, has been hired to coach the Pierce College women’s volleyball team.

Ken Stanley, who coached the men’s and the women’s teams last season, will remain men’s coach.

Notes: Tony Palamara, a starting guard on last season’s Cal State Northridge football team, has been reactivated by the L. A. Cobras Arena Football League team. Palamara had spent two weeks on the injured reserve list because of bruised ribs. He plays tight end and defensive end for the Cobras. Before coming to CSUN, Palamara was a junior college All-American tight end for Saddleback College. Brian Clark of Northridge is the Cobras’ starting center.

The Cal State Northridge swim team has signed Joseph Brosler, a backstroke specialist from Clayton Valley High in Concord, Calif.; Kevin Disbrow, a free-styler from Oceanside; and John Kunishima, from Wilson of Hacienda Heights. Kunishima is the Southern Section champion in the 200 individual medley and 100 freestyle. . . . In women’s tennis, CSUN has signed Caren Hasselo, the No. 3 singles player on Grossmont College’s state championship team.