COLLEGE DIVISION NOTEBOOK / MARTIN BECK : Gustine Finds a Positive Side to Chapman Job

There may have been better times to take over the men’s tennis program at Chapman College, but Reddy Gustine has faced tougher challenges.

Gustine, whose varied coaching experience includes starting a basketball program at a university in Indiana and a tennis program at Cal Baptist, assumes the position former Chapman tennis standout Terry Davis held for a year before resigning in August. Davis left because he was disappointed with the lack of scholarships for the program.

Last year, in Cal Baptist’s first season of men’s tennis, Gustine led the Lancers to a 27-0 record and a fourth-place finish in the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics national tournament. He has no illusions about his present situation.

“I think not having scholarships does present some problems,” Gustine said. “It makes the job a lot harder. They were at such a high level, in some ways we may pale by comparison.”

Gustine, who played tennis for McNeese State in the late ‘70s and briefly on the professional tour, said any team he coaches will be competitive. As a high school tennis coach in Louisiana and Indiana, he compiled a 164-47 record. At Indiana South Bend, where he started a basketball program, he compiled a 64-46 record in four seasons.

At Chapman, he is taking over a program that was arguably the most dominant in the NCAA’s Division II during the second half of the 1980s. The Panthers won national championships in 1985, ’87 and ‘88, finished second in 1986 and fourth in 1989.

Davis, who as a player helped Chapman to its first title in 1985, guided the Panthers to the tournament last year, but they lost to eighth-seeded Southwest Baptist, 6-0, in the first round and finished eighth of eight teams.

After the tournament, Davis blamed the relatively low finish on the college’s elimination of tennis scholarships the previous year. Davis said he resigned after it became clear to him the college wasn’t interested in retaining him. His full-time position was to be replaced by a part-time one, so he decided to return to his job as the teaching professional at a local country club.

Despite the limitations of heading a program without scholarships, Gustine is confident that this is a good time to be coaching tennis at Chapman.

Gustine said there are several fine players returning from last year’s team. Lettermen Michael Zuercher, an All-American last year, Laurent Dropsy and Peter Bohan are back and Arsistiois Vassiliou, who sat out last season, will also play. Gustine also may bring in some transfers to bolster the team.

“Realistically, I don’t think people are going to look at us the way they have looked at Chapman in the past,” Gustine said. “Of course, that will be to our advantage.

“I think it’s going to be an exciting time. It’s going to be a different challenge due to the no-scholarship situation.

“(But) too many people only look at scholarships. They don’t explore all the other opportunities for financial aid. Sometimes that aid pays more than scholarships do.”

The Southern California College women’s volleyball team lost two matches on its Hawaiian tour last week. The Vanguards (12-9) lost to Chaminade in three games, then fell to Brigham Young Hawaii, the nation’s top-ranked NAIA team, 15-5, 15-3, 15-4.

Southern California will begin its Golden State Athletic Conference season against Cal Baptist at 7:30 p.m. Friday at home.

Add SCC: Cross-country runner Sherri Hall, a 38-year-old mother of two who has qualified for the nationals twice, has won the college division competitions at both of the Vanguards’ meets this season. In her latest meet, Hall ran 18 minutes 47.3 seconds for 5,000 meters to win the Azusa Pacific Invitational Saturday.

Help wanted: When Roger Davis resigned as cross-country and track and field coach at Christ College Irvine Sept. 7, he left the men’s and women’s cross-country teams without a leader a week before the first meet.

The college has hired David Saltin, a physical education teacher at Bonita Canyon Elementary School in Irvine, as interim coach. But the program still lacks enough runners to field teams in the men’s and women’s team competitions.

Even so, Renee Carroll, a junior from Denver, said the season has started well.

“We have a lot of athletes but they’re not all up to the capability of running a race yet,” said Carroll, who was the top Christ College finisher at the Whittier College Invitational Saturday. “But they are getting there.”

The women will likely have four--one short of enough to score as a team--competing on Saturday in the Aztec Invitational at Balboa Park in San Diego.

The men have seven runners on the team and four or five likely will run in San Diego. The goal is to have full teams competing in the Golden State Athletic Conference meet Oct. 13 and the NAIA District 3 meet Nov. 3. Last season the men had a full team in one meet and the women never fielded a team.

Carroll, who ran 21:00 for 5,000 meters on a hilly Whittier College course, said she used to get disappointed because the Eagles didn’t have enough runners to compete as a team.

“I’m starting to enjoy running more for itself,” Carroll said.

College Division Notes

Before accepting the job at Chapman, Reddy Gustine had agreed to be the tournament director for the ITCA-Rolex NAIA Western Regional tournament in Riverside. So instead of backing out of the commitment, Gustine has moved the tournament to Orange County. The tournament, in which men and women compete to qualify for the national championship in Corpus Christi, Tex., in late October, will be Oct. 3-6 at the Costa Mesa Tennis Club. . . . Amanda Houlton, sports information director at Christ College Irvine, has been named information director for District 3 of the NAIA. Houlton, who ran cross-country and track for Point Loma Nazarene in San Diego before graduating in 1989, will compile and disseminate statistics for the district. . . . Matt Fogelsong has been named sports information director at Southern California College. He replaces Tim Ramage who has been reassigned to the college’s publications office. . . . Dave Weatherill, a Chapman physical education professor since 1967, has been named the college’s faculty athletic representative.