Fullerton Boosters in for Battle : College: Titan Athletic Foundation will be hard pressed to meet $2.3-million goal. Fund-raising firm, new sports complex called keys to campaign.

In launching a two-year, $2.3-million fund-raising campaign, Cal State Fullerton’s Titan Athletic Foundation is boldly attempting to go where it has never gone before.

The most the booster group has raised in any year is $453,891, in 1989-90, and the past six annual TAF drives combined have generated only about $2.1 million.

What’s more, TAF drive figures are somewhat deceiving because Fullerton coaches--not the TAF--actually raise a large portion of TAF funds.

TAF pledges are classified in two categories--restricted gifts, which are designated for a specific sport, and unrestricted gifts, which are given to the athletic department and allocated by the administration.

Of this year’s projected $432,500 in TAF funds, $259,700 was restricted gifts. Steve DiTolla, associate athletic director in charge of business affairs, said coaches are directly involved in raising about 80% of restricted TAF funds--roughly $200,000 this year.

That’s in addition to the $265,725 that coaches have raised this year through special projects, such as baseball, softball and soccer camps, grass volleyball tournaments, tennis and golf tournaments and cartwheel-a-thons.

“No question, they do a lot of the work,” DiTolla said.

Wrestling Coach Dan Lewis, for instance, raised $95,000 this year, which represents about 65% of his $146,162 budget. About $60,000 came from one donor.

Women’s gymnastics Coach Lynn Rogers raised $64,500 in special projects and TAF funds, including $50,000 from a corporate sponsor, Arrowhead Water. That’s about 28% of his $231,266 budget.

The Titan baseball program, with coaches Augie Garrido and Larry Cochell, raised $157,500 this year, more than any Fullerton program. That’s about 43% of the team’s $360,482 budget.

“We’re maxed out--we can’t raise any more money. . . .” said women’s basketball Coach Maryalyce Jeremiah, whose program raised $16,000 this year. “I’m a coach and I’m trained to coach.”

Ed Carroll, who resigned as Fullerton athletic director last week, said this month that coaches wouldn’t be asked to raise a significantly larger amount in coming years.

“Coaches are already making enough of an effort,” Carroll said.

Which means the Titan Athletic Foundation is going to have to make more of an effort for this $2.3-million campaign to be successful.

“The main thing we have to do is attract donors who are capable of giving $25,000 and above in cash,” TAF Executive Director Walt Bowman said. “We have maybe 20 people who give between $2,500 and $10,000, but some have the capacity to give more.”

Clearly, the TAF will have to cultivate new donors and new tactics to increase revenue. In the past, the TAF has relied on letters, phone calls, pledge cards and mailers.

“We’re going to have to go face-to-face, one-on-one with people,” said Bowman, who hopes to expand his volunteer pool from about 75 to 200. “Donors are going to have to be carefully cultivated. We have to ask people for money now--we can’t hope they’ll step forward and give.”

Bowman has seen encouraging signs. Since late January, when the school was on the verge of dropping football before university president Milton A. Gordon decided to retain it, Bowman says the TAF has received two-year pledges totaling about $200,000.

“We had about 1,300 donors last year, but most of the people who have called in the last three weeks are new donors,” Bowman said.

There are three prominent new factors that should benefit the TAF--a new school president, who has stepped forward with a commitment to the campaign, a prominent professional fund-raising company that will be coordinating the effort, and a new, on-campus sports complex, scheduled to open in 1992, that will provide the kind of marketing vehicle the school has never had.

The Robert B. Sharp Co. revealed plans last week to roll the $2.3-million athletic department campaign into a larger, $6.3-million campaign, with $4 million going toward the completion of the Titan Sports Complex.

The Santa Ana-based fund-raising consultants, who are being retained by the school at a cost of $540,000, will run the sports complex campaign and coordinate the athletic department drive. Company president Robert B. Sharp believes momentum from the stadium campaign will help the TAF effort.

“Having Sharp involved is a significant factor,” Carroll said. “We’ll have fund-raising expertise--new techniques and new ideas--that we haven’t had in the past.”

The TAF drive will be developed around a stadium seat-option plan, whereby choice season-ticket locations are tied into donations to the athletic program.

Details of the plan have not been finalized, but Bowman said if the school can sell at least 70% of its seat-option seats--in the football and baseball portions of the complex and Titan Gym for basketball--the school could generate $450,000 to 650,000 in two years.

This, combined with the fund-raising efforts of coaches and TAF members and the ever-decreasing pool of state funds, is what Cal State Fullerton is building its athletic department’s future on.

“I’m really optimistic they can do it,” said Carroll, who will begin his new job as assistant athletic director for finance at UC Irvine next week.

“The question is whether you can maintain it year in and year out.”