Track / John Ortega : Redshirt Season Could Save CSUN From a Red-Faced Division I Debut

Among them, they scored 36 points and earned All-American honors in four events in the NCAA Division II track and field championships in Hampton, Va., last week.

They have scored 78 points in the past three Division II championships and have been honored as All-Americans 10 times.

However, there is a good chance that Cal State Northridge juniors Darcy Arreola, Lolita Pile and Walt Stewart will not compete in next year’s Division II meet.

With Northridge scheduled to move up to the Division I ranks in the fall of 1990, Arreola, Pile and Stewart might redshirt next season so they can compete at the Division I level in 1991.

“We’re thinking very seriously about doing that,” Northridge Coach Don Strametz said. “Those three should be able to make an immediate impact at that level. They should give us some credibility when we move up.”

Arreola, winner of the 3,000 meters and runner-up in the 1,500 in last weekend’s Division II meet at Hampton University, has met the Division I qualifying standard in the 1,500 every year in which she has competed for Northridge. She has bettered the Division I standard in the 3,000 the past two seasons.

Arreola will run in the 1,500-meter trials in the Division I meet in Provo, Utah, today and, should she qualify, in the final Saturday.

Pile, runner-up in the Division II triple jump, qualified for the Division I meet in that event, but she will not compete because of a hyper-extended right elbow.

“It’s nothing serious, but we want to rest her and let it heal,” Northridge assistant coach Tony Veney said of Pile’s injury, which she sustained several weeks ago in a workout. “Right now, it hurts enough that she’s very conscious of it when she lands. She tends to favor it, which throws off her technique.”

Stewart, who defeated defending-champion Bob Sundell of Northwest Missouri State in a jump-off for the Division II high jump title, improved his personal best to 7 feet, 2 1/2 inches this year, one inch shy of the Division I standard.

Stewart, for one, backs the redshirt plan.

“I would be for it,” he said, “because I wanted to clear the Division I standard this year, but I didn’t. Competing at that level in 1991 would give me some incentive.”

Arreola, who redshirted the 1988 cross-country season, is opposed to redshirting next track season but acknowledged that it might come to pass. Pile is unsure of her plans.

Add Stewart: Although Stewart’s winning jump of 7-0 1/2 was the lowest in the Division II championships since 1983, it capped a superb season for the Notre Dame High graduate.

After starting the season with a personal best of 6-11 3/4--set as a freshman in 1987--Stewart leaped 7-0 1/2 at a quadrangular meet at Northridge in March, jumped 7-1 3/4 to win the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. title at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on May 13, and cleared 7-2 1/2 to place second in an invitational meet at Cal State Los Angeles eight days later.

“I just trained a lot harder this year,” Stewart said. “I’m faster and I’m stronger and it paid off. I spent more time in the weight room and I ran more sprints in workouts, and it’s shown in my jumping.”

He has grown too. As a 6-foot-3, 175-pound freshman, Stewart placed 13th in the 1987 Division II meet at Cape Girardeau, Mo. Now Stewart stands 6-4, 185.

“I’m about as big as I want to get,” Stewart said. “Now it’s just a matter of getting stronger.”

Last add Stewart: Friday was a big day in the Stewart household: Walt won the Division II men’s high jump and sister Jenny, a junior at Notre Dame, placed fifth (5-4) in the girls’ high jump in the Southern Section Masters meet to qualify for Friday’s state championships at Cerritos College.

Supply and demand: Some coaches said it was a predictable result of Proposition 48 being enforced at the Division II level.

Others said that it was the result of bad weather in much of the country earlier this season, which forced the cancellation of several meets and hampered performances in others.

Still others claimed it was the result of some Division II schools moving up to the Division I level.

Whatever the reason, this year’s Division II meet was plagued by a lack of depth in several events.

Only two women met the qualifying standard in the 200 meters, only three in the 100-meter low hurdles and only four teams bettered the qualifying standard in the men’s 1,600-meter relay. As a result, the NCAA Division II Track and Field subcommittee, headed by UC Riverside Coach Chris Rinne, had to come up with a last-minute solution to increase the fields in those events to a minimum of five entrants.

Not wanting to contest a final with only two, three or four entrants--the top eight finishers receive points on a 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis--the subcommittee held qualifying races in those events among athletes who already had qualified for the Division II meet in at least one other event.

“It was a Band-Aid solution at best,” Rinne said. “It was an attempt to get through this year with the least amount of pain as possible. But something has to change next year.

“It’s ridiculous to have a Division II championship with only five entries in an event. You should have at least eight entries in each event as the top eight finishers score points.”

One possible solution is for the NCAA to keep a list of not only Division II qualifiers but a priority list of leading non-qualifiers.

That way, if an event has a low number of qualified athletes at a specified date--say, two or three weeks before the championships--the standards could be changed to increase the size of the field.

The Division II indoor meet has used that method in recent years and it is time the outdoor meet did likewise, according to Rinne.

“The standards are designed to keep the meet at a championship level,” Rinne said. “But you don’t want them to be so strict that only two or three athletes are participating in a particular event. It’s not competition when that happens. And competition is what this meet is all about.”