THE COLLEGES / MIKE HISERMAN : Plush Canyons Stadium Needs a Tenant

Let’s get this straight.

Cal State Northridge, a university with more than 30,000 students and a football team that has been a winner for four consecutive years, will play host to Eastern New Mexico tonight in a stadium that can graciously be described as antique.

A broken down, insect-infested antique.

North Campus Stadium has approximately 6,000 available seats--more than half of which are temporary. The press box is open air, so there is no need for ticket holders to tune in to KGIL radio for Joe Buttitta’s play-by-play. They can hear it live. And the lights? Players could see better tonight if the 2,000 or so fans all lit a match.

Meanwhile, the best football facility in the region will be empty tonight.

The football stadium at College of the Canyons has an estimated capacity of 7,000, an enclosed, climate-controlled (trendy way of saying it has a heater) press box, lights you could read the classifieds by, and, since 1981, no football team.

What a waste.

Canyons had a football team from 1967 to 1981 before the district dropped the sport as part of a massive budget cut. Pierce College did the same thing a few years ago, but its program was quickly resurrected.

At Canyons, which serves the football-crazed area of the Santa Clarita Valley, there are no such plans.

Hart and Canyon high schools, whose graduates form a large percentage of Canyons’ 6,000 enrollment, have won a combined 56 football games in the past three seasons. A few of the players from those teams have earned football scholarships to four-year universities.

A much larger percentage weren’t big enough, fast enough or strong enough--at the time--for the big time. They enrolled at junior colleges. Not the local school. Instead, they traveled to Valley, Pierce, Glendale, Antelope Valley and beyond.

Some people can make light of the situation. The vagabond players are “away from home, but not so far away that they can’t take the laundry home on weekends,” said Harry Welch, Canyon High’s popular football coach.

Welch said he has never heard one of his athletes complain about not being able to play for the local junior college.

Others have.

Mike Herrington, coach at Hart High, has a brother, Dean, who was an All-Southern Section quarterback at Hart in 1981. Dean planned to attend Canyons until the school dropped football. Instead, he went to Pasadena City College. “We need the local community college to have a program,” Mike Herrington says.

There have been a couple of attempts to bring the sport back. A few years ago, a study concluded that it would cost more than $300,000--a figure Herrington says is ridiculously high--to start it up again. College board members showed little interest in making such an investment.

“We don’t have a real supportive cast there,” Canyons Athletic Director Lee Smelser says.

When Canyons dropped football, the school’s enrollment was only about 2,000 and most of the players were recruited from outside the area. The faculty and board believed too much money was being spent on students who came from outside the community.

That was before the Santa Clarita Valley became a hotbed for the real estate boom of the ‘80s. Canyons’ enrollment has more than tripled, even though there are some who believe its growth has been stunted by the lack of an extracurricular activity with the popularity of football.

Smelser says there are those in the Canyons athletic department who would be overjoyed to have football back. Herrington says there is some support for it in the community. Both agree that a stronger endorsement is necessary.

“We’re just not a real big noise right now,” Smelser said.

What a waste.

Weird statistics: Northern Arizona was credited with only eight first downs--four passing and four rushing--in a 37-3 win over Northridge last week.

The Lumberjacks’ passing first downs all came on touchdowns, covering 76, 10, 63 and 41 yards. Northern Arizona quarterback John Bonds passed for 292 yards, of which 190 came on the four scoring plays.

Injury report: Cal State Northridge lost its starting quarterback and free safety to injury in last Saturday’s football game, but Northern Arizona’s only injury was far more serious.

Quinn Fauria, the Lumberjacks’ starting fullback, sustained a knee injury in the first quarter that required surgery the next day. Fauria, a redshirt freshman from Crespi High, is out for the season.

Northridge hopes that free safety Clayton Bamberg will play tonight in the Matadors’ home opener against Eastern New Mexico. Quarterback Sherdrick Bonner will miss the contest but should be ready for CSUN’s next game, Sept. 22 at Central (Okla.) State.

Rumor mill: Expect Jody Robinson, former assistant to Augie Garrido at Illinois, to be hired as top assistant for the Northridge baseball team. Robinson was on the same Cal State Fullerton staff as current CSUN Coach Bill Kernen when the Titans won the NCAA World Series championship in 1979.

Robinson has been an assistant at Illinois for three seasons. When Garrido returned to Fullerton, Robinson applied for the top post at Illinois but was passed over in favor of former Southern Illinois Coach Richard Jones.