CAL STATE FULLERTON NOTEBOOK : After Shooting, Siler’s Career in Doubt

With a bullet lodged dangerously close to his lung and a police investigation looming, Clarence Siler’s football career hangs in the balance.

Siler, the Cal State Fullerton defensive end who is recovering from gunshot wounds incurred during a brawl last week, is listed in good condition at the UC Irvine Medical Center.

But he is having trouble breathing because of the bullet that struck him in the shoulder, and his left thumb and index finger are numb because of a bullet that hit his wrist. He has a tube in his chest, which drains blood from his lungs so he can breathe easier.

According to Siler, doctors won’t perform surgery because the bullet is too close to the lung. Siler, a junior, is expected to remain in the hospital at least through this week.

After that, Siler isn’t sure what he will do--or what he’ll be able to do. Taking a nice, deep breath--not playing football again--is his top priority.

“I really haven’t talked to the doctors about whether I’ll be able to play again,” Siler said. “It depends on how fast I get my strength back.”

It also depends on what Titan Coach Gene Murphy decides to do with Siler. After an El Toro Marine was beaten to death during a fight with two Fullerton football players in April, 1988, Murphy laid down the law to his players:

“Local bars are off-limits,” Murphy said. “ . . . Failure to comply with this rule will result in missing a game or games or dismissal from the team.”

Murphy has refrained from disciplining Siler until the Fullerton Police Department’s investigation of the incident is complete. Siler says he was an innocent victim of circumstances, but Fullerton Police Sgt. Danny Becerra said Siler “was participating in the assault on the officer” that led to the shooting.

Police said an off-duty Pasadena officer was tackled and kicked in the head by five or six people, most of them football players, after he tried to break up a fight between two women in the Carnivale Club parking lot in Fullerton last Thursday.

Murphy has heard many conflicting stories, “but the fact is, (Siler) was there, and that’s unfortunate,” Murphy said.

“Football is my life--that’s all I know and all I really want to do,” said Siler, a 6-foot-4, 240-pounder who was an All-Big West Conference, honorable-mention selection last season and is one of Fullerton’s few returning starters.

“I’ve been playing all my life, ever since I could carry a football, and I’ve always wanted to play professional football.”

Empty feeling: Titan women’s gymnastics Coach Lynn Rogers sat in a Corvallis, Ore., restaurant last Saturday evening, dining on broiled salmon, sipping a glass of wine, and wishing he were somewhere else.

The final round of the NCAA meet was about to start at Oregon State and, for only the second time in 15 years, no Titan gymnast had advanced to the championship round.

“It felt strange to be having dinner at 5 p.m. instead of warming up in the gym,” Rogers said.

Fullerton finished eighth overall with a team score of 189.700, but no individual finished among the top eight in any event. Freshman Stacy Fowlkes was the Titans’ top performer, finishing 17th in the all-around with a season-high score of 38.35.

Junior Lisa Dolan did well on the uneven bars (9.650) and balance beam (9.575), and junior Margot Gumerlock (9.675) and senior Heather Thomas (9.625) did well on the floor, but none was among the top 20 finishers in each event.

“We gambled a bit, throwing some moves we hadn’t tried before, and we didn’t hit,” Rogers said. “We sacrificed some team security to get some individuals in the finals, but it didn’t work out.”

Add gymnastics: Fullerton men’s Coach Dick Wolfe was named West Regional coach of the year during last weekend’s NCAA men’s championships at Minneapolis. He hopes the award isn’t a going-away present.

School president Jewel Plummer Cobb has set a May 21 deadline for acting on a proposal to cut the men’s program because of financial problems, but Wolfe believes his fate will be decided this week, when Fullerton students vote on a referendum to increase the Instructionally Related Activity Fee from $10 to $15 a semester.

The increase would create an annual windfall of about $240,000, some of which would go toward funding the men’s gymnastics program.

“If that referendum doesn’t pass, I think we’re history,” Wolfe said.

Titan Notes

Gymnast Bill Barham placed 30th in the all-around competition at last weekend’s NCAA meet and advanced to the final round in the floor exercise, where his score of 9.6 was good for seventh place. . . . The Fullerton baseball team, ranked 16th nationally in the Collegiate Baseball/ESPN poll and 21st by Baseball America, travels to Cal State Long Beach this weekend for a key Big West Conference series. The Titans and 49ers will play at 2:30 p.m. Friday and on Saturday and Sunday starting at 1 o’clock. . . . The Fullerton softball team, ranked fourth in the nation, travels to top-ranked UCLA today for a 1 p.m. double-header. . . . Titan pitchers Huck Flener and Ann Van Dortrecht have been named Big West Conference pitchers of the week. Flener pitched six shutout innings in Fullerton’s 4-3 victory over Chapman last Tuesday, and followed with a complete-game, five-hitter in a 6-1 victory over Nevada Las Vegas Sunday. Van Dortrecht won three softball games, shutting out UNLV (4-0) and San Jose State (5-0) and beating UC Santa Barbara (3-2), last week. . . . Kelly Hunt, a first baseman from Charter Oak High School in Covina, Karin Knoop, an infielder from Los Angeles Valley College, and Melissa Hadfield, an outfielder from El Capitan High in Lakeside, have signed letters of intent to play softball at Fullerton next season. Titan Coach Judi Garman projects Hunt, an All-Southern Section, first-team selection last season, as the team’s starting first baseman next year and Hadfield, a power hitter, as a starting outfielder. Knoop, an All-Southern Section catcher at John Burroughs High two years ago, should challenge for an infield spot or play a utility role. . . . Jill Matyuch, a senior guard on the Titan women’s basketball team this past season, is one of 150 college athletes who have been nominated for the first National Assn. of Collegiate Directors of Athletics/Disney Scholar-Athlete Awards. To be nominated, student-athletes had to have a minimum 3.0 grade-point average (on a 4.0 scale) and be named All-American or all-conference in their respective sport. Disney will honor 10 of the nominees with a $5,000 grant to be used toward post-graduate studies. . . . The Titan women’s tennis team, seeded sixth in the Big West, will play third-seeded UNLV Thursday in the first round of the conference tournament at Ojai. Fullerton (13-14 overall, 5-6 conference) has been led by the doubles teams of Roseann Alva-Kelli Moore (19-6) and Colleen Duignan-Caroline Sporer (16-3).