Gauchos Seeking Birth of a New Football League

In the past 10 years, UC Santa Barbara has built its football program nearly from scratch.

After the sport was eliminated at the school in the early 1970s, it resurfaced on the club level in 1983.

Since then, the program has moved steadily upward.

Santa Barbara competed in NCAA Division III from 1986 through last season, when it had a 6-4 record, including 5-1 against Division II teams.

The Gauchos have moved up to Division II this year and have split their first four games.

But win or lose, Santa Barbara does not figure to play Division II football for long.

That’s because the NCAA decided at its annual convention last January that Division I members must compete in the same division in all sports by the 1993 season.

Since the Gauchos are Division I in all other sports, Santa Barbara essentially has the option of moving up to Division I or eliminating football as an NCAA sport.

There is also a proposed Division I-AAA level in which programs would not be able to offer athletic scholarships--similar to the current Division III format. But Athletic Director John Kasser said that is not a realistic possibility for his school because not many West Coast teams are considering joining such a division.

“It really doesn’t make a lot of sense for the schools in the West because the only ones that really fall into that category are us and the University of San Diego, and you can’t form a conference with two schools,” he said.

So Kasser has turned to trying to form a second tier of the Big West Conference that would play at the I-AA level starting as early as next season.

“The Big West Conference is looking to start a I-AA consortium that would have a limited number of scholarships,” he said.

Kasser said the conference would consist mostly of teams from California and could also include Santa Clara, St. Mary’s, Cal State Northridge, Cal State Sacramento, Southern Utah State, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and the University of San Diego. All have Division II programs except San Diego, which is in Division III.

“It helps to have some natural rivals, and in this case we would have some natural in-state opponents such as Santa Clara, St. Mary’s, CS Northridge and Sacramento State,” Kasser said. “It really makes sense to us.”

For the Gauchos, who have competed as an independent since their football program was reinstated, the move makes sense.

“We simply have to be affiliated with a conference,” Kasser said. “It’s just very hard to be an independent in this day and age.”

With a step up to Division I-AA and a conference affiliation in mind, Kasser said, the school is also seeking to increase its football budget from about $80,000 a year to $400,000, and the student body is expected to vote on the proposal in February.

“I think it has a good chance of passing as long as we already have a place to play and we already have a first-class facility to play in,” Kasser said.

He said part of the additional funding would go to add four full-time assistants.

“We’re not worried as much about (money for) scholarships,” Kasser said. “We think the university can attract people on its own merit.”

While there are still a number of obstacles to a new conference, including a decision on the number of scholarships that each school can offer, Kasser says that an agreement could be reached by next month.

“The NCAA’s ruling doesn’t go into effect until 1993, but we can’t wait that long,” he said. “We have to act as soon as possible.”

After a Saturday morning flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco and a long bus ride north to the stadium in Rohnert Park, the Cal Lutheran football team arrived in plenty of time for its 1:30 p.m. game against Sonoma State.

Unfortunately, about half of luggage--including equipment and uniforms--was not placed on the same flight with the team.

So Robert Doering, Cal Lutheran’s athletic director, stayed behind at the airport to await the missing luggage, which didn’t arrive until 12:30 p.m.

The start of the game was delayed until 3, and the luggage didn’t reach the stadium until almost 2:30.

To enable Cal Lutheran to catch its 8 p.m. return flight, game officials also agreed to 12-minute quarters in the first half, a five-minute intermission and regulation 15-minute quarters in the second half.

Cal Lutheran wound up making its flight with less than 20 minutes to spare, but lost the game, 28-0.

College Division Notes

The Cal State San Bernardino men’s soccer team has made a big impression during its first week in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. After moving into the NCAA Division II rankings for the first time at No. 16, the Coyotes opened conference play with a 4-0 shutout of 11th-ranked Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and ran their conference record to 2-0, and 9-1-1 overall, with a 3-1 victory over Cal State Dominguez Hills. CS San Bernardino, having moved up to No. 11 in the rankings, is led by sophomore forward Rolando Uribe, with 10 goals and 22 points, and goalkeeper Brian McCully, with an 0.65 goals-against average. The Coyotes are expected to receive their toughest conference test when they visit preseason CCAA favorite Cal State Bakersfield today. Bakersfield has moved into the No. 16 spot vacated by San Bernardino.

The Cal Lutheran women’s soccer team, competing in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference for the first time, moved into first place with a 2-1 overtime victory over Claremont-Mudd-Scripps. The Regals are 6-0 in the conference and 8-2 overall

The Occidental football team ran its record to 3-0 with a 17-14 victory over Claremont-Mudd last week. The Tigers are the only remaining undefeated college division team in the Southland.