THE COLLEGES / MIKE HISERMAN : Northridge’s Conversation About Joining WAC Just Small Talk

Talk from college athletic administrators is cheap. Which can be taken both figuratively and literally.

Western Athletic Conference officials recently asked Cal State Northridge if it would be interested in associate membership in baseball and softball.

Northridge said yes.

But guess what? Northridge has given the same answer the previous three times the question was asked.

“We’ve had the same conversation around the same time the last three years,” said Bob Hiegert, Northridge’s athletic director. “They’ve asked if we would be interested if they went into some kind of regionalized setup and we have answered affirmatively.”

Yes, but such talk often is worthless. And, by contrast, sending one’s athletic teams traipsing all over the Western Hemisphere is rather pricey. So the WAC is sending out feelers. Again. Conference officials long have considered splitting the WAC into divisions in sports other than football and basketball.

“The whole idea is to cut travel,” said Jeff Hurd, associate commissioner of the WAC. “Basically, we’re just gathering information. The commissioner is doing research to find out what schools are interested and if it’s feasible.”

Northridge, a Division I independent in sports other than football, is interested in the WAC . . . and the Big West . . . and the Big Sky.

Hiegert talked with Big West Commissioner Jim Haney in July and with Big Sky officials in September.

“We’re interested in associate memberships whenever it makes sense for us financially,” Hiegert said. “We have stated publicly our interest in the Big West. The WAC would put us with some pretty good company too.”

Of course, there has been talk of such a setup before, but Hiegert says the discussion is “farther down the line” than it has been in the past.

Bill Kernen, Northridge’s baseball coach, said he knew nothing about conversations between Northridge and WAC officials until he was told by other coaches.

Bob Bennett, whose perennially strong Fresno State baseball team will join the WAC in 1992, favors the inclusion of Northridge. “It would improve the situation,” Bennett said. “They have a good program, and from a selfish standpoint they’re close to us.”

Jim Dietz, coach of the San Diego State team that won last season’s WAC baseball championship, points out that the WAC--with the addition of Fresno State--will have an odd number of baseball teams--nine.

He once believed that a second addition would prove useful in splitting the conference into divisions, thereby saving his program more than $20,000 per baseball season in travel costs alone. Now he’s not so sure.

“What makes the most sense at this point is to have the five teams from the north in one division and ourselves, Hawaii, Fresno and New Mexico State in the other,” Dietz said. “We don’t really need another school to split things up.

“I have a feeling it won’t happen. But it was something that was kicked around. Money is the issue, and when you start considering different alternatives, the whole thing gets kind of complicated.”

Hiegert is convinced that there will be some “serious conversations” about conference affiliation after January’s NCAA convention in Anaheim.

Representatives from the WAC, Big West and West Coast Division I independents are due to discuss regionalizing sports other than football and men’s and women’s basketball.

Already there are the NFL, WLAF, CFA and NAIA football, not to mention the NCAA, which encompasses Division I, Division I-AA and Division II.

So are we ready for the formation of NCAA CCDI-AAF football?

It could happen. And Northridge could be in the middle of it.

Northridge and other colleges in the same sinking boat must fit into some classification of major-college football by the fall of 1993 if their other athletic programs are to retain Division I status.

Which is where the CCDI-AAF--cost-containment Division I-AA football--comes in.

The conference would be an option for schools that most comfortably fit somewhere between the Division I-AA limit of 65 scholarships and the proposed I-AAA classification, which will be nonscholarship, or close to it, if created at the NCAA convention.

Proponents say a cost-containment Division I-AA conference might be the savior of mid-level West Coast football. A cynic might say it resembles the Division II Western Football Conference wearing a fake nose and a fancy label.

Vic Buccola, commissioner of the WFC, said the formation of a new cost-containment league has been discussed with all six conference members, plus the University of San Diego, a Division III independent, and UC Santa Barbara and St. Mary’s, both Division II independents.

The conference, while calling itself a Division I-AA league, would have its own set of rules. The scholarship limitations would most likely be in the 30-40 range, which is possible because the NCAA has no minimum requirements for Division I-AA when it comes to scholarships, stadium capacity or home attendance.

“West Coast football is in trouble at the level we’re at,” Buccola said. “The problem is trying to get with people of varying philosophies and pull them together.”

An alliance--it could end up a consortium rather than a conference--at the Division I-AA level seems to make as much sense as any. State schools that are Division I in sports other than football--such as WFC members Northridge, Cal State Sacramento and Southern Utah--are staunchly opposed to competing at a nonscholarship level. However, they also are unable to finance a full-fledged move to Division I-AA.

“Right now everybody in the Western Football Conference is pretty much in concert with the idea,” Hiegert said. “We just need some more folks thinking the same way.”