Moorpark’s Wilson Able to Transfer

Usually a college basketball recruiter knows top prospects as well as he knows his own family. But one hot recruit, Moorpark College freshman Damian Wilson, is just now surfacing.

Wilson’s skills are no secret, but the common assumption was that he was a Proposition 48 casualty.

“A lot of people don’t know that he can transfer this year,” Moorpark Coach Al Nordquist said.

Nordquist and others assumed Wilson had failed to meet Proposition 48 academic standards because he had fallen short of the required 700 the first time he took the Scholastic Aptitude Test.

However, Wilson retook the test in August and, according to Nordquist, earned a 780. Nordquist said Wilson’s Westchester High grade-point average is well above the required 2.0 and if Wilson earns a C average or better for 24 units at Moorpark, which he should easily do, he will be able to transfer.

“He would like to, and we’re working right now to let some people know,” said Nordquist, who has told USC, UC Santa Barbara and others about his talented guard.

The 6-foot-1 Wilson averages 20.7 points and leads the Western State Conference with a field-goal percentage of 60.9.

Award winner: Cal State Northridge’s Bob Burt was among 20 football coaches honored last week at an awards ceremony that highlighted the American Football Coaches Assn. convention in New Orleans.

Burt, whose Matadors won a share of the Western Football Conference championship last season, was voted Division II coach of the year in one of five districts nationwide. When it came time for the award winners to be introduced, he took center stage among some of college football’s biggest names.

It was, he said earlier this week, “the highlight of my coaching career.”

“It doesn’t help you win next year or put extra money in your pocket, but it sure can pump you up,” Burt said. “I’m looking at the medallion here and thinking . . . you need a twin.”

Burt said he considered the award special because it was voted by other football coaches. Among those offering congratulations were UCLA’s Terry Donahue and Arizona’s Dick Tomey.

Burt was a walk-on assistant on Donahue’s UCLA staff in 1976 and was defensive coordinator under Tomey at Hawaii from 1977-79.

Said Burt: “It really meant something coming from those guys because they have an appreciation of what I had to go through to get there.”

What, him worry?: With the passing of an NCAA resolution prohibiting schools with Division I athletic programs from playing football at a lower classification, Northridge faces the prospect of having to compete at a higher level by 1993.

But if Burt is worried about it, he is veiling his concern rather well.

“Right now I’m worried about recruiting and going out and trying to win the (Western Football Conference) again--maybe by ourselves this time,” Burt said. “I don’t have to worry about that other stuff for a year and I’m not going to worry about it until I have to.”

CSUN has signed two junior college players and is awaiting scholarship paper work on a handful of others. Offers are out to an offensive tackle, a kicker and two linebackers.

Northridge also is courting some high school recruits and plans to add more junior college transfers during the summer months.

“We won’t be done recruiting until school starts (next fall),” Burt said.

Trickle-down theory: Burt expects scholarship cuts (from 95 to 85 by 1994) in Division I-A football to improve teams playing at lower classifications.

“Those 1,060 scholarships saved at Division I are going to go down to Division I-AA and then some players that would have gone Division I-AA are going to play Division II and so on down the line,” Burt said. “The quality of play on the lower levels will go up a little, I think.”

That domino effect should be aided by additional scholarships cuts, from 70 to 63, at the Division I-AA level.

Biding their time: Last season, they were three of the top junior college basketball players in the Valley region. This season, none of them are playing.

Aaron Clark of Canyons, Gary Fowler of Glendale and Greg Taylor of Moorpark have exhausted their junior college eligibility but are still on campus taking care of academic chores.

Clark said he will return to Canyons for the spring semester, plans to finish his Associate of Arts degree and is interested in Hawaii-Loa as well as Whittier and The Master’s.

Fowler, who originally committed to Eastern Washington, is finishing his degree work at Glendale and plans to go to either San Jose State or Cal State Fullerton, Glendale Coach Brian Beauchemin said.

Nordquist said Taylor should complete his academic duties when the semester ends later this month. Taylor, who originally committed to Pan American (Tex.), visited Azusa Pacific on Wednesday, along with former Moorpark teammate Sean Young.

She’s a ‘Hog now: Toady Kimble, who last year helped lead the Northridge women’s swimming and diving team to a second-place finish in the NCAA championships, has transferred to Arkansas, CSUN Coach Pete Accardy said.

Kimble, whom Accardy said left for personal reasons, is the school record-holder in the 50-yard freestyle (51.10). She also swam legs on the team that set a school record in the 400 free relay (3:28.19) and an NCAA Division II record in the 200 free relay (1:34.83).

“(Kimble’s departure) will affect our team to some extent,” Accardy said. “She probably would have been our best swimmer this season. I’m sure there are no hard feelings. It was just a weird set of circumstances.”

Milestones: Nordquist recorded his 400th career victory at Moorpark two weeks ago against Glendale.

The only basketball coach ever at Moorpark, Nordquist has 403 wins and 321 losses in 24 seasons. That same night against Glendale, Moorpark’s Sam Crawford recorded the first triple-double of his career, finishing with 24 points, 19 assists and 11 steals.

Staff writers Mike Hiserman, Brendan Healey and Jane Huang contributed to this notebook.