SDSU Dream Could Turn to Nightmare : Sports: Hiring basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, with his blemished past, isn’t worth the risk of sullying a hard-earned academic reputation.

Those familiar with the history of San Diego State University understand the persistent aura of frustration that has shrouded its athletic programs for nearly two decades since Don Coryell seemed poised to take the football team truly into the “big time” of national sports.

In season after season, sport after sport, from one coach to the next, landmark victories were won, program advances were made, only to succumb to slippage and marginal status in succeeding seasons. Somehow, the breakthrough never came.

The unhappy record of Jim Brandenburg is only the latest in a series of dashed high hopes. A proven winner, nationally respected, he mysteriously came a cropper in San Diego even before the completion of Fred Miller’s field house, projected in the delirious sports fan’s imagination as a monument to signify San Diego State’s emergence at last into the land of athletic glory.

It is not difficult to understand why the architects of San Diego State’s sports dreams might regard the availability of Jerry Tarkanian as a providential solution. He is a winner, and did not his winning teams bring solvency and national renown to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas?

The trouble is, Jerry Tarkanian did not bring positive national recognition to the university, only to the basketball team. The fans who marvel at the cohesion and precision of the “Runnin’ Rebels” on national television do not extend their praise to the university they represent. In fact, and perhaps unfairly, the repeated news stories of NCAA investigations of recruiting practices, players dining with known game-fixers, and the coach’s friendships with petty hoodlums and gamblers have damaged the academic reputation of the university at least as much as the coach’s and players’ success on the basketball court have enhanced its athletic reputation.

Perhaps UNLV needed the notoriety and success of Tarkanian and his teams to let the nation know it existed; San Diego State University does not.

Indeed, during the same decades that SDSU failed to transform itself into a big-time sports school, it did transform itself into a university of national stature in academia. Quietly and steadily, without the media coverage that accompanied the struggles of the athletic programs, top-flight faculties were assembled, student standards were raised, dozens of solid and innovative degree programs--including several doctoral programs--were initiated and maintained. Without question, the flagship of the California State University system, San Diego State, is recognized year after year as one of the leading multipurpose universities in the country, an institution of genuine excellence.

Ironically, Jerry Tarkanian himself recognizes that the academic standards and reputation of San Diego State exceed those of his present employer, and he has cited them as one of the chief reasons he would like to become the basketball coach here.

He says that here he would be able to recruit a higher caliber of player, maintain his successful record without compromising academic integrity. He says pointedly that it is his responsibility to coach and the responsibility of the university administration to maintain its academic standards.

His advocates say that, given a fresh start here and firm oversight by university administration, he would run a clean program at SDSU. The scandals that followed him from Pasadena City College to Long Beach State to UNLV would not recur.

That is simply too great a chance to take. If the scandals, improprieties and NCAA investigations were to follow Tarkanian to San Diego State, the damage done to the athletics here would far outweigh any benefits that would come with success.

The most important reason for not hiring Tarkanian, however, has to do with the real mission of San Diego State and its image to the community and nation. Given the history of San Diego State athletics and the notoriety of Jerry Tarkanian, his hiring as the university’s basketball coach would send an unmistakable message: San Diego State is willing to compromise its hard-won and rapidly improving academic reputation for a successful sports program. Regardless of the success or integrity of Tarkanian’s programs thereafter, the stain left by that message would remain.

President Thomas Day will soon make either the best or the worst decision of his tenure at San Diego State University.

Should he show the courage to reject Jerry Tarkanian’s bid for employment, he will send a clear message that San Diego State University thinks too highly of its reputation and its academic mission to risk them for big-time sports. Such a decision would earn him the wrath of some fans, and probably cost the athletic department some season-ticket holders and some financial support. But it would immediately enhance his and the university’s reputation in the academic world, and in the longer term should win the applause of the community for helping to maintain the excellence and integrity of one of its most vital institutions.