Basketball Assistant at CSUN Quits for Financial Reasons

Wayne Fluker, an assistant basketball coach at Cal State Northridge, has left his post because he said he no longer can afford to coach.

Fluker was replaced by Jerry Carrillo, who last season served as a CSUN graduate assistant coach.

A Northridge center from 1983-85 and a graduate assistant coach at CSUN from 1986-88, Fluker rejoined the staff last season, replacing Dave Fehte, currently an assistant at Loyola Marymount.

Because the state budget provides for only two full-time coaching positions--those of Coach Pete Cassidy and top assistant Tom McCollum--Fluker’s job was funded through private donations.

“I love coaching, but, unfortunately, it is a luxury of love at this stage for me because of financial obligations,” Fluker said. “The CSUN athletic program doesn’t have enough money to pay me what I could get elsewhere.”

Fluker, 32, said that he was offered a coaching position at another college that would have tripled his CSUN salary. He declined, he said, because the job still would not have paid enough and it would have conflicted with his teaching duties at Lindero Canyon Middle School in Agoura.

“It is tough,” Fluker said. “I’ve been combining one profession that doesn’t pay--teaching--with another profession that doesn’t pay--coaching.”

Fluker said he will supplement his teaching income with a job in a health-fitness business and that he plans to attend Northridge games and give an occasional coaching clinic.

“It is a shame (that he left) but he’s got to look out for No. 1,” Northridge center Peter Micelli said. “He was a great guy to talk to and he was great in practice because he could play with us and hammer us.”

Carrillo, a high-energy personality, came to CSUN from Jamestown (N.Y.) Community College where he was an assistant to his brother, Ken, in 1989-90.

“I’m very much excited,” Carrillo said. “It was a goal of mine. I’m definitely dedicated to coaching.”

Carrillo’s new duties include recruiting, an area in which he gained experience at Jamestown.

Previously, Carrillo coached junior high school and junior-varsity teams for four years in Phoenix.

Along with his coaching duties at Northridge, Carrillo, a 1987 graduate of Arizona, will teach part time in CSUN’s physical education department and work on his Master’s degree.

Carrillo’s former position will not be filled because CSUN is reducing its coaching staff to four, a year ahead of NCAA requirements.