A Boon to Kids and Coffers : Universities, Youths Find Summer Camps Mutually Beneficial

The rest of the campus is quieter than usual during the summer months, but the same cannot be said of the athletic department at Cal State Northridge.

Around the pool and in the locker rooms, on the tennis courts and soccer fields, activity abounds. Kids, many with young adults in hot pursuit, are everywhere.

They range in age from 6 to 17, but all have at least one thing in common: They have come to participate in a sports camp.

Some aspire to become college athletes. Others are there less for the sport than for the day care.

Whatever the reason, their numbers are multiplying.

In 1986, there was an enrollment of 830 in the seven camps run by the CSUN athletic department. This summer, school officials estimate, the number might exceed 1,600, a total that does not include an additional 200 participating in a fitness camp run independently by the school’s physical education department.

At Cal Lutheran, camps will bring more than 1,500 athletes onto the school’s Thousand Oaks campus this summer. Of the nine camps at CLU, only one will provide revenue for the school’s own programs.

The others--including the Pat Riley, Magic Johnson and John Wooden basketball camps--are conducted independently.

What little money Cal Lutheran receives, said Dennis Gillette, a school vice president, goes to providing food, housing and facilities for the camps.

“It’s done more for friend-raising than fund-raising,” Gillette said. “It’s an opportunity to showcase our campus to potential students. The type of quality folks who have their camps here attract quality young people. It’s very advantageous for us just to have them on campus.”

Good public relations is also a consideration at Northridge, which plans to expand its enrollment, improve its athletic facilities and upgrade its sports schedule in the near future.

“It’s one of the better PR things we could be doing,” Bob Hiegert, CSUN’s athletic director, said of the camps. “It’s an example of the value of having a university in the community.”

However, at CSUN the prospect of a fatter billfold makes the potential benefit twofold.

Sports camps will account for almost $190,000 in gross receipts at Northridge this summer, about $140,000 of which will be generated from the seven camps run by the athletic department.

A portion of the money will go toward new or upgraded equipment and some will be added to the recruiting or scholarship budgets of each sport. The rest--an estimated 40%--will go toward camp instructors’ salaries.

Determining those salaries is up to the camp supervisor, who in all but one instance is the school’s head coach. Athletic department policy dictates that coaches who are on 12-month contracts may not draw a salary from a camp, but a majority of the school’s coaches are volunteers, part-time faculty members or walk-ons who are paid a stipend to coach.

“A lot of the coaches are on a 10-month salary, so it gives them the opportunity to pick up another month’s salary,” said Ran Railey, CSUN’s director for athletic fund-raising.

Pete Cassidy, CSUN’s basketball coach, supervises a camp as part of his normal workload.

But for Dave Fehte, a volunteer assistant on the basketball staff, the money he earns for working during summer camps is the only income he will receive from the school.

“He puts in so many hours you would think he’s full time. He gives so much,” Cassidy said of Fehte. “The camp is at least a small opportunity to give something back.”

Marwan Ass’ad, who is paid $10,000 as coach of the Northridge soccer team, will almost triple his salary this summer by holding nine one-week camps, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. each weekday from June 26 through Aug. 18. Cost per session: $125.

“It’s my survival,” Ass’ad said of the camps. “If I could not have the camp I would be a fool to stay here. . . . It’s definitely my major income.”

Last summer alone, Ass’ad’s share of his camp proceeds was more than $15,000. Not a bad take for nine weeks of work but, as Ass’ad is quick to point out, his yearly salary from the school two years ago was only $5,000.

Over the past three years, Ass’ad’s soccer camps have accounted for more than half of the 3,300 participants in the athletic department’s summer programs.

Ass’ad’s soccer camp started in 1984, running two weeks with an enrollment of 150. The following summer, it expanded to seven weeks.

“The third year we went all available weeks because I have nothing better to do in the summer and it helps me make some money too,” Ass’ad said.

Athletes, too, can benefit financially from the camps. Although NCAA rules prohibit basketball players with eligibility remaining from working at summer camps, Ass’ad is allowed to employ as many as six of the school’s soccer players as camp instructors.

Tony Davila, CSUN’s women’s tennis coach, has two players--Heather Miller and No. 1 singles player Allison Kincaid--instructing at his camp.

“I want to pay them because I don’t have any full rides and I want to give them an opportunity to recoup some of the financial losses they incur by going to school and not being able to work during the season,” Davila said.

Coaches say they usually resist the temptation of making promises of summer employment as part of their recruiting package.

“Some people are great tennis players, but they don’t make themselves into good teachers and they’re not good with kids,” Davila said. “There are people who I want to play for me that I wouldn’t want to work for me at a camp.”

In addition to supplementing his salary and providing his players with summer employment, the proceeds from Davila’s tennis camp mean an extra $4,000-$5,000 for scholarships--a 40% increase over what the school’s athletic budget provides.

“We could survive without it,” Davila said of his camp, “but the money we make is a substantial increase. If it’s one thing we all need it’s more money for scholarships. You can have all the other ingredients for a good program, but without being able to go out there and say point-blank, ‘I can give this to you,’ you’re not even in the ballgame with some of the top kids.”

CSUN’s soccer team, which might be the school’s most successful program per dollar spent, benefits as much by the additional exposure as it does from the extra cash.

Three former campers--Terry Davila, Keith Martin and Stewart Marrs--are current CSUN players. And the majority of campers, Ass’ad says, attend Matador home games.

“As the camp grows, so does the number of fans,” Ass’ad said. “They come to camp, they go to the games. They bring a friend. Then the friend comes back with a friend. Or they go to camp and go back to their AYSO teams and someone says, ‘Hey, where did you learn these things?’ And they say, ‘At soccer camp.’ Our family grows each year.”

And so, of course, do the profits.