RUNNING / JOHN ORTEGA : Fields Looking Forward to a Word From Sponsors Before 1992’s Big Show

Were 1990 an Olympic year or even a year immediately preceding the Games--when corporate sponsors are eager to gain attention from supporting potential Olympians--Farron Fields of Northridge might not be in a bind.

After all, with a personal best of 28 minutes 45.9 seconds in the 10,000 meters, a 10th-place finish in that event in The Athletics Congress championships in June, and a third-place effort in the Olympic Festival in July, Fields appears to have the credentials to warrant sponsorship by a major shoe company or a track club.

But as of Wednesday he had none.

“I’m hopeful that something will come about in the next couple of months,” said Fields, who competed unattached this season. “I just sent out some packets to Nike, Asics and New Balance, telling them who I am and what I’ve done, and hopefully I’ll get some help out of that.”

Fields, a 1979 graduate of Granada Hills High, also intends to apply to the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Outreach Program, through which up-and-coming athletes work 30 hours a week but are paid for 40, allowing them time to train.

“The optimistic view would be to get a job under the USOC program and also get the club sponsorship,” Fields said. “The pessimistic view would be to get neither. Hopefully, I’ll get at least one.”

If Fields fails to get either, his running career could be in jeopardy: He is eager to start a career related to his degree in economics.

“I’d like to run for another five years,” Fields, 28, said. “But a lot depends on what happens with the money situation. . . . I’m definitely going to train for the upcoming cross-country season, but after that, I’m not sure.

“I’ve been running long enough to know that you can only take things one season at a time.”

Ones that got away: Being an avid fisherman, Cal State Northridge track and field Coach Don Strametz knows how it feels to have a big one get away.

Unfortunately for Strametz and his Northridge coaching staff, that feeling has not been limited to angling this summer.

In recent weeks, three of Northridge’s most sought-after recruits have signed with other schools or have been declared ineligible under NCAA Division I rules.

Bryan Bridgewater of Long Beach City College and Danyel Mitchell of Vallejo High signed with NCAA champion Louisiana State, and Felix Sandy of Sierra Leone in West Africa cannot compete for Northridge because he is too old, according to NCAA rules.

“We’re disappointed, but that’s the way things go sometimes,” Strametz said. “It’s nice to be in the running with a school of LSU’s stature, though. I think that shows we’re doing something right.”

Bridgewater, the two-time defending state junior college champion in the 200 meters, and Mitchell, the third-place finisher in the shotput in this year’s state high school championships, had narrowed their choices to LSU and Northridge.

Sandy, who has a personal best of 46.04 seconds in the 400, ran for Azusa Pacific the past three seasons before deciding to transfer away from the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics school as a senior.

NCAA rules, however, state that once an athlete turns 20 and is competing, he has four years to use up his collegiate eligibility.

Sandy will turn 26 on Dec. 16.

“He was all set to come here. We had him,” Strametz said. “But then we discovered the rule.”

Although Sandy is ineligible to compete at the Division I level, to which Northridge will ascend this year, he could compete for a Division II or III school or an NAIA program.

Looking ahead: The CSUN men’s track team finished second in the Division II championships in May and the women placed fifth, yet former Northridge standout Dave Stephens predicts difficult times for the Matadors in Division I.

“I don’t think Northridge will be competitive at that level until the football program goes Division I also,” said Stephens, the 1988 Olympic Trials champion in the javelin. “Right now, the only athletes that Northridge will be getting are trickles from the local junior colleges and that’s not going to do the job. Northridge needs revenue from a big football television contract in order to have the funds to attract the top athletes. I don’t see that happening in the next 10 years.”

Stephens, the 1984 Division II men’s javelin champion for Northridge, said that Darcy Arreola would be the only Northridge athlete who would be able to place in the Division I meet next season and “probably only sixth at best.”

Yet Arreola finished third in the 1,500 meters in the 1989 Division I meet before redshirting at Northridge last season.

With four-time 1,500 champion Suzy Favor having used up her eligibility at Wisconsin, Arreola should contend for the national title in that event next season.

Trading places: Robert Nelson, who attended Pasadena City College last year, will transfer to Glendale College this fall, and James Moore, the Western State Conference 10,000-meter champion (31:36.2) for Glendale last spring, will transfer to Pasadena.

Neither runner will be eligible to compete during the cross-country season, but both could compete in track if they complete 12 academic units in the fall.

Nelson placed 10th in the Southern California junior college regional cross-country championships last season.

As a Muir High senior, he was the runner-up in the 1988 Southern Section 4-A Division cross-country meet and placed sixth in the 3,200 meters (9:09.20) in the state track meet.

Moore placed 17th in the Southern California regional cross-country championships and 21st in the state meet last season.

As a Verdugo Hills High senior in 1989, Moore finished fifth in the 3,200 meters in the City Section track finals. His best at that distance was 9:32.54.