Fallin Tries to Turn Double Play at PLNC

His last name is not the most apropos for a basketball player: Fallin. His first name accurately describes his golf game of late: Rusty.

Yet Rusty Fallin is a name that could figure prominently in Point Loma Nazarene College sports. Fallin, a 6-foot-4 junior, has amazed PLNC people with his shooting ability on both the basketball court and the golf course.

The name Rusty Fallin reminds PLNC basketball and golf Coach Ben Foster of another name: Rick Mallicoat. Foster calls Mallicoat the best athlete in school history. As he does with Fallin, Foster coached Mallicoat in basketball and golf during the early 1970s.

Foster remembers scheduling his golf events around baseball, so Mallicoat could play three sports. As a senior, Mallicoat was the District 3 golf champion and first-team All-District in both basketball and baseball.

Fallin showed flashes of the same brilliance in February, when he shot a low-round 75 in a dual match at the par-71 Rancho San Diego Monte Vista course. Two nights later, he scored a game-high 27 points in a 68-66 loss to Cal Baptist.

Fallin, a junior college transfer from Scottsdale, Ariz., finished PLNC’s 11-19 season with a team-leading 17.8 scoring average and an 86.6 free-throw percentage. He was named first-team All-Golden State Athletic Conference and second-team All-NAIA District 3.

“He’s a good all-around basketball player, and we knew that he was a very good golfer,” Foster said. “He did not play in junior college. But we recruited him (at Phoenix College) with the idea of him playing both.”

Fallin, who at one time considered golf his No. 1 sport, posted an occasional round in the 60s in tournaments last summer. But lately he has struggled, averaging around 81.

“We’ve played tough golf courses in some pretty tough weather conditions,” Foster said. “He really expects to be a quality golfer. He’s just in a slump right now.”

But Foster thinks he has the perfect medicine for Fallin: a trip next week to his native state for a tournament and a round of golf with Mallicoat, who coincidentally works in Phoenix as the youth minister at Biltmore Church of the Nazarene. Mallicoat should be an inspiration on two accounts. Aside from his storied past as a Crusader, Mallicoat was once a teaching pro at Bel Air Country Club in Los Angeles.

Foster says he’s not trying to make Fallin another Mallicoat. But he said Fallin certainly has a chance to leave a similar impression.

“I think (in) basketball and golf, Rusty still has to accomplish what Rick did,” Foster said. “Rusty has a chance in two sports. He really has the potential to be a great player in both sports.

“The day of the two-sport athlete is pretty rare now in most schools. With some sports, it’s not compatible because of the overlap. Rick was probably the best athlete ever to play at Point Loma. He was probably the last of a breed. Rick was definitely the last of the three-sport stars.”

Washout: When Iona (N.Y.) and Wisconsin Whitewater entered their baseball teams in last week’s UC San Diego Invitational Tournament, they probably planned to augment their agenda with a day at the beach, perhaps a round of golf at Torrey Pines and maybe a trip to Sea World. What they got was a little rain and a lot of sand and Joshua trees. At least for two days.

A storm delayed the event, which was condensed from four to three days and moved from rain-soaked Triton Field to Imperial Valley College in El Centro the first day. The Tritons (8-14, 1-3 in the tourney) were most hospitable to their vacationers from the East, however. They gave Iona 18 hits in an 8-1 defeat and took it on the chin to Whitewater, 2-1. Whitewater lost to Cal Baptist, 10-9, in the final at UCSD.

Honors on a roll: The burning question around PLNC this spring might not be whether its distance runners again will dominate NAIA men’s track and field. They carried the Crusaders to a fourth-place finish in the national meet in 1990 and they led PLNC to nine NAIA cross-country titles since 1977.

No, the focus might be on all PLNC athletes. The question will be whether they can extend their reign of academic dominance.

The Crusaders have had the best classroom record of all 14 schools in NAIA District 3 each season for the past four years. Last spring, they set records.

Twelve in-season PLNC athletes posted a grade-point average of 3.5 or better, the most ever by any District 3 school. Ten of them are back, including Ron Caton, a baseball player who carries a 4.0 GPA as a physics major.

But the true torchbearers appear to be the men’s track athletes, who have led the nation in NAIA Scholar-Athlete selections (the equivalent to NCAA All-American honors) the past two years. The Crusaders had five scholar-athletes 1990, six in 1989.

“Our coaches recruit athletes that are also good students,” said Sharon Irwin, PLNC’s associate dean for student development who monitors the athletes. “The athletes have strong discipline, and it spills over into their academics. They’re in control of their lives.”

Irwin said close to 50% of all Crusader athletes carry a GPA of 3.0 or better.