Antelope Valley Feeding, Clothing Fans With Philanthropic Offense

Fans attending Antelope Valley College home basketball games have plenty of chances to win, and two of them--a raffle and a halftime free-throw shooting contest--have nothing to do with what the Marauders do on the court.

However, there are four other reasons for the crowd to get behind the home team.

Each time Antelope Valley scores more than 80 points, fans receive a free soft drink from a fast-food restaurant chain. For 90 points or more, ticket-holders receive free French fries. And should the Marauders reach triple-digits, a double-deck burger awaits.

Antelope Valley has scored more than 80 points in seven of its eight home games this season.

In addition, every time an Antelope Valley player makes a three-point shot or a slam dunk, a T-shirt supplied by the restaurant chain is tossed into the stands.

But what school officials thought was a year’s supply of shirts is gone. Even before Saturday’s game at home against Victor Valley, the Marauders had made a school-record 191 three-point shots in 23 games. Tony Madison and Paul Ernst both have broken the previous school individual record with 63 and 61 three-point baskets, respectively.

The number of such shots made on the Marauders’ home court was unavailable, but it was enough to break the fast-food chain’s pot of gold. A school spokesman says the restaurants have been reluctant to supply more shirts, stating, We deserve a break today . . .

Front-runners: One Western State Conference coach called the Valley College men’s basketball team a “dark horse” before the start of the conference season.

But Coach Jim Stephens has managed to harness his prodigious stable of thoroughbreds and Valley has run roughshod over its foes in the early going. The Monarchs were 5-0 going into Saturday’s game against Ventura. And they broke Santa Monica’s 29-game conference winning streak along the way.

There was no doubt that Valley had scoring punch with the likes of Steve Ward and Shawn DeLaittre, but lately the Monarchs have won with defense. For instance, Valley held high-scoring Santa Monica to 69 points in the Corsairs’ gym.

Hard to believe that Valley now has one of the best JC teams in Southern California. Last season, Valley was unable to play its final three games because of academic and disciplinary reasons.

Misnomer: No wonder there is confusion over the conference’s name. The return address on envelopes that carry media information say Western States Conference, which happens to be incorrect.

The official name is singular--Western State Conference--which makes sense. After all, every team is from California.

Bold prediction: No sooner had USC completed a straight-game win over the Cal State Northridge men’s volleyball team at the CSUN gym when Coach John Price made a startling prediction.

“It may seem hard to believe right now, but we’re going to beat those guys this year,” he said. “Trust me.”

He was referring not to the Trojans but to defending national champion UCLA, winner of the NCAA championship in six of the past nine seasons.

Well, that is difficult to believe, even though two nights later Northridge rebounded from its loss to USC by defeating Loyola Marymount in four games.

CSUN will play host to the Bruins on Wednesday night. The Matadors’ chances of gaining their first victory over UCLA certainly would be enhanced should setter Matt Unger return to the lineup. He is temporarily ineligible because of academic reasons.

Task at hand: There have been more than a few distractions this off-season for Bob Burt, coach of the Northridge football team.

Burt applied for the coaching vacancy at New Mexico State and was approached by Nevada Las Vegas officials about coaching the Rebels. There also was speculation that he would take over at Cal State Fullerton should Titan Coach Gene Murphy go to UNLV.

However, Northridge’s program isn’t suffering the consequences. CSUN has signed 13 junior college players.

Burt credits Arizona Coach Dick Tomey with teaching him to concentrate always on the task at hand. Burt was an assistant to Tomey at Hawaii.

“When Dick Tomey was involved in speculation about another job, he always said that the most important job to him was the one he had,” Burt said. “You have no control over what anyone else is going to do, so you have to take care of what you have.

“I knew all along I was either going to stay here and have a helluva football team, or go and leave a helluva football team for someone else.”

Of course, heady recruiting by assistants didn’t hurt, either.

Independent study: There was no news from Dallas, site of the NCAA convention earlier this month. And that’s bad news for Northridge.

Little was said about the formation of a new Division I conference on the West Coast, which means some CSUN teams likely will be left without league affiliation.

Bob Hiegert, Northridge athletic director, said that the school will wait for the Big Sky and Big West conference meetings in June and hope that CSUN’s baseball, softball, women’s volleyball, swimming and track teams might find homes in either conference.

Basketball is likely to be left out, Hiegert says, because existing conferences are hesitant to expand and risk a chance that the NCAA basketball committee will take away their champion’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Conferences such as the Big Ten and Atlantic Coast wouldn’t have a problem, but those on the fringe--like the Big West, Big Sky and Western Athletic conferences--cannot afford to take on a newcomer.

With a comparatively easy schedule and no major-college tradition, it is feared that a first-year Division I school such as Northridge could adversely affect the power rating of other schools.

Prize package: Good things usually come in extra-large packages when it comes to offensive linemen, which is why Scott Norton, CSUN’s assistant line coach, has good reason to be excited by the potential of recruit Don Goodman.

Goodman is 6-foot-8 and 340 pounds. Said Norton: “All I know is that he had to duck and turn to the side just to get in the door. That was enough for me.”