New Sports Federation Would Join Conferences

Several non-revenue sports in the Big West, Pacific 10 and the Western Athletic conferences could find themselves in an inter-conference affiliation next year, if a proposal made last week in Los Angeles by representatives of the three conferences is passed.

The proposed Mountain Pacific Sports Federation would unite non-revenue sports from the three conferences in order to preserve competition and control costs, according to Chris Hoyles, a Pac-10 assistant commissioner and the conference representative at the meeting.

The proposal will be voted on by conference governing bodies this week and a final decision is expected Feb. 15. If it is passed, competition under the new federation might begin this fall.

The seven sports that would be affected are men’s and women’s soccer, men’s volleyball, water polo, wrestling, men’s gymnastics, and men’s and women’s indoor track. All are sports that are not sponsored by all institutions within each of the conferences.

The new federation would also take over the Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn., which includes 12 men’s teams from the Pac-10, Big West, WAC, West Coast Conference and independent Cal State Northridge. “It will be a step up for men’s volleyball if the major multisport conferences take (WIVA) over,” WIVA Commissioner Robert Newcomb said.

The proposal came too late for the men’s gymnastics program at Cal State Fullerton, which was dropped along with women’s volleyball last week.

Opposition to the federation could arise for several reasons.

The status of conference affiliates and independents is in question, but Hoyles said that all affiliates would be invited to participate as long as they meet Division I standards.

Some programs might be unwilling to part with their conference identities. “Some of the sports that we talked about . . . would kind of lose their WAC identity if we put them in a federation and called them something else,” said Margie McDonald, deputy commissioner of the WAC, who was the conference representative at the meeting.

Travel costs could increase for some programs because the federation would extend over a large geographic region.

The No. 11 Pepperdine women’s tennis team usually has a wealth of foreign talent. This season, there are five players from Europe and three players from the United States on the Wave roster.

Said Bill Zaima, coach of No. 4-ranked UCLA: “I’m at UCLA and therefore I can recruit the best American players and I feel that American scholarships should be for American players.”

Said Pepperdine Coach Gualberto Escudero: “I want to give Americans the first chance. I look for players who are ranked high enough to keep us in the top 10 or 15 in the nation. If I have lost those (American) recruits, then I will start searching elsewhere.”

Pepperdine’s No. 1 singles player, however, is preseason No. 11 Noelle Porter of San Clemente. “I’m always skeptical at first before the team arrives,” Porter said. “But this year, when the girls arrived and I saw the hard work ethics . . . I can’t say we would have had the same with nine Americans out there.”

Porter defeated UCLA’s Mamie Ceniza in singles last Saturday, 7-5, 6-2, but Pepperdine lost the match, 6-3.

Next year would seem to offere a better shot for the defending NCAA champion USC men’s tennis team to win another title. This year’s team is young and is lacking Byron Black, a senior last year who finished No. 6 in the final collegiate singles rankings and No. 3 in the doubles rankings along with sophomore Brian MacPhie. But MacPhie is not waiting around.

MacPhie and Jon Leach, who is the son of Trojan Coach Dick Leach, have won the doubles finals in the three tournaments they have played so far this season.

MacPhie led USC to 5-1 victories over both UC Santa Barbara and Washington in USC’s first dual matches last week, and he will compete next in singles and in doubles with Leach in the National Indoor Intercollegiate Tennis Championships in Minneapolis on Feb. 6-9.

Notes

The Loyola Marymount women’s basketball team is in last place in the West Coast Conference standings (6-13 overall, 0-6 in conference). Pepperdine (10-9, 2-4) was in sixth heading into the third weekend of league play. . . . Allegra Milholland left UCLA and the No. 4 Bruin women’s tennis team last week to return to her hometown of MacLean, Va., to pursue tennis on her own. “I just decided that it was in my best interest that I maybe go home and try something new,” Milholland said. “I knew that the team is so good that they weren’t really going to miss me.” Milholland, who would have competed for the No. 6 spot, said she felt she had come to be viewed as solely a doubles player and that she wants to improve her singles game.

The No. 7 Pepperdine men’s tennis team, under first-year Coach Eliot Teltscher, began dual-match play by sweeping South Florida, 9-0, on Friday. . . . The USC women’s tennis team, which for the first time in its history did not earn a trip to the national championships last year, swept its first two dual meets this season, 9-0, then scored an 8-1 victory over UC Santa Barbara last week. Unranked USC will play Pepperdine on Tuesday in a match between two relatively untested teams.