Luginbill Recruiting Draws Protest : Football: The San Diego State coach has denied the charges made by three California community college coaches.

A protest lodged by three California community college football coaches over the recruiting practices of San Diego State Coach Al Luginbill will be reviewed by a committee of the California Community College Football Coaches’ Assn.

The committee is scheduled to meet in San Francisco April 26-27, said Jack Jordan, association president and coach at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton.

Jordan said the committee could impose sanctions that could include preventing SDSU football coaches from recruiting on California community college campuses, and obtaining game films and academic transcripts.

The complaints were lodged last fall by coaches at San Jose City, Merced and Cerritos colleges. The coaches said they stem from conversations they had with Luginbill about high school players Luginbill was recruiting in 1989. The coaches allege Luginbill acted improperly in steering at least one player to Mesa College in San Diego, and threatened to discredit their programs with coaches and players in their districts if they did not cooperate with him in his recruiting.

Luginbill said he wrote to Jordan about three months ago denying the charges. Jordan said Luginbill will be invited to testify before the sanctions committee.

“We did not do anything,” Luginbill said. “It is incorrect in any way, shape or form. For them to even consider sanctions is completely off base. I didn’t act as any agent, and there were no threats.”

The first complaint concerned Donnell Ragsdale, a wide receiver from Oak Grove High School in San Jose. Ragsdale signed a letter of intent in February 1989 to attend SDSU, but he did not meet NCAA freshman eligibility requirements and instead enrolled at Mesa last summer and played football in the fall. Luginbill has said Ragsdale enrolled at Mesa so that he might be able to obtain an associate of arts degree by this summer and transfer to SDSU for the 1990 season.

Howard Gay, coach at San Jose, said he was interested in Ragsdale and charged Luginbill steered Ragsdale to Mesa in violation of state community college assn. rules. Those rules prohibit someone from acting as an “agent” by placing a player in a school outside of his community college district.

Gay said when he talked to Luginbill about the alleged infraction, Luginbill told him he would advise others not to send their players to San Jose.

Merced Coach Tony Lewis lodged a similar complaint. According to Lewis, Luginbill wanted Anthony Austin, a running back from the Los Banos High School, to enroll at Mesa last summer. Lewis said he persuaded Austin to stay near home and play at Merced.

Lewis alleges Luginbill tried to pressure him to have Austin obtain a degree in time to transfer to SDSU for the 1990 season. He said when he told Luginbill that was impossible because of Austin’s poor academic record, Luginbill became upset.

Gay and Lewis said they contacted Frank Mazzota, coach at Cerritos College and association president at the time, to complain. Mazzota said when he called Luginbill to discuss the charges, the conversation became heated and he charged Luginbill also threatened to discredit his program.

All three coaches said they have no evidence that Luginbill carried out the alleged threats.

“I never threatened Howard, Mazzota or Lewis,” Luginbill said. “I told Howard that he didn’t have any right to state where any student-athlete is going to school. For him to think he does is totally wrong. This isn’t Russia--it’s the United States.”

Jordan said that if sanctions are imposed, they will be voluntary on the part of the association’s 78 member schools. He said no action is being contemplated against the players involved.

“We don’t want to penalize young athletes from the chance of getting a scholarship,” Jordan said. “But at the same time, we don’t want the kids to be misled when something is not in their best interests.”

SDSU will still be in spring football in late April when the sanctions committee is supposed to meet.

“I’m not going to miss spring football,” Luginbill said. “They can hear my side--they know where I am. I’ve got a conference phone. The whole thing is absolutely ridiculous.”

Times staff writer Curt Holbreich contributed to this report.