Titan Athletic Program in Crisis : Cal State Fullerton: The department has been in upheaval since January, 1991, when the school considered dropping football.

When USC Athletic Director Mike McGee was counseling one of his assistants, Bill Shumard, about taking the job as Cal State Fullerton’s athletic director, he told him how much fun he would have, how much of a challenge it would be.

“He also said, ‘Frankly, Bill, there are days I wouldn’t give the athletic director’s job to a dog,’ ” Shumard said.

There have been plenty of dog-day afternoons for Shumard, who is coming up on his eighth month as athletic director at Fullerton, a.k.a. Cal State Crisis.

He’s currently embroiled in a court case spurred by the athletic department’s Jan. 28 decision to drop the women’s volleyball program. The team filed a lawsuit against the school, claiming the move violated state sex-discrimination laws.

On March 16, Shumard made his first major personnel move, firing basketball Coach John Sneed. The next day, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights began a review of the athletic department for possible violations of Title IX, the federal law that requires males and females to be treated equally in all areas of education.

Three days later, a Superior Court judge signed a preliminary injunction ordering the school to reinstate the volleyball program. And Monday, volleyball Coach Jim Huffman was fired.

In the meantime, Shumard has been busy searching for a basketball coach and keeping tabs on the athletic department’s major fund-raising campaign, which on Wednesday was reduced from a goal of $6.3 million to $5 million.

“There’s been a lot of rocking and rolling, a lot of stuff going on around here,” said Steve DiTolla, Titan senior associate athletic director.

Though Shumard has been busy trying to keep the department in tune, there was plenty of noise reverberating from the halls of Titan Gym before he got there.

In fact, since the school considered a proposal to drop football in January, 1991, it’s as if some kind of kinetic force has overwhelmed the athletic department, causing a flurry of activity and front-page headlines.

“Things happen when you’re in a growth spurt, like we are, as opposed to places like Colorado and Arizona, which have been around long enough that there’s status quo,” DiTolla said. “But they’re 100 years old and we’re 30, and with those spurts come positive and negative things. That’s the stage of life we’re in.”

A look at the last 14 months in the life of a Cal State Fullerton athletic director . . . or, My Life As A Dog:

Jan. 25, 1991: Massive, university-wide budget cuts result in an athletic department shortfall of $500,000, and it appears the school has dropped football, even as construction of an on-campus stadium continues.

Coach Gene Murphy spends the day trying to find jobs for his assistants. He tells players the program is dropped, releases six recruits from their letters of intent, and tells prospective recruits to look elsewhere. The Big West Conference prepares a release stating Titan football is history.

But wait! City officials who have invested more than $9 million in the Titan Sports Complex help convince President Milton Gordon to reconsider, and by late afternoon, the school releases a statement saying Gordon was “considering an athletics council recommendation” to drop football. Vital signs aren’t good, but the program is still alive.

Feb. 1, 1991: After a week of meetings with Titan boosters, city officials, community and alumni groups and the Academic Senate, Gordon decides to keep football, based on his belief that the athletic department can raise enough money to overcome its budget deficit.

But one of the football team’s “best recruiting classes ever,” according to Murphy, is lost, leaving little talent for the 1991 team.

Feb. 14, 1991: Ed Carroll, the happy-faced Fullerton athletic director who said he wanted to accentuate the positive but instead was forced to spend his six-year tenure slashing budgets and threatening to drop sports, resigns to take a job as UC Irvine’s assistant athletic director for finance.

School officials say Carroll was under no pressure to resign, but Carroll “accepted responsibility for a miscommunication (between Gordon, himself and Murphy) that resulted in damage to the football program.”

Feb. 19, 1991: A $2.3 million fund-raising campaign to benefit the Titan athletic department is rolled into a $4 million campaign to benefit the Titan Sports Complex, creating a $6.3-million effort.

The school hires the Santa Ana-based Robert B. Sharp Co., at a cost of $540,000, to run the campaign, which will be implemented in two phases, a one-year, $4-million private campaign and a six-month, public $2.3-million campaign.

Footnote: The private campaign has netted $1 million in pledges.

Feb. 27, 1991: Two Titan basketball players, Greg Vernon and Michael Bloodworth, are arrested in connection with the theft of a student’s car and the use of stolen credit cards. Both are suspended from the team for the remainder of the season.

Vernon is eventually reinstated after felony charges were reduced to misdemeanors as part of a plea-bargain agreement, and he plays the 1991-92 season. Bloodworth leaves the school.

March 11, 1991: A group of Titan basketball players, unhappy about several incidents that occurred during a 14-14 season, organizes a mutiny against Coach John Sneed and asks DiTolla to fire him.

The players criticize Sneed for inconsistent discipline patterns and questionable personnel decisions. One player says the team had “started losing respect” for the coach. But Sneed survives the coup attempt, and DiTolla retains him for another season.

Mid-March, 1991: In a rare stroke of good news, the Fullerton women’s basketball team reaches the second round of the NCAA tournament, where it loses to national power Stanford.

Titan center Genia Miller, who averaged 29.4 points, 12.3 rebounds and 4.4 blocked shots, becomes the first Fullerton women’s player in 14 years to earn All-American honors when she is named to the 10-member Kodak team.

April 9, 1991: Dick Wolfe’s 23-year tenure as Titan men’s gymnastics coach comes to a bitter end when he announces his resignation. The school had threatened to drop the sport in 1990 and ‘91, and Wolfe had his salary slashed in half during his last season.

“A couple of times I’ve reached the top of the hill only to find not a light at the end of a tunnel but, rather, someone much larger than I with a two-by-four,” says Wolfe, who guided Fullerton to College Division NCAA championships in 1971, ’72 and ’74.

May 20, 1991: After three years at Illinois, Augie Garrido returns as Fullerton baseball coach and guides the Titans to a 34-22 record and Big West Conference co-championship. Garrido is so sure Fullerton, which won 10 of its last 12 games, will make the NCAA tournament, he invites reporters to the Fullerton Marriott lounge to watch the pairings show with him.

But when the Titans are not one of 48 teams selected, stunned silence fills the room.

“In 20 years of watching college baseball, this is the biggest miscarriage of justice I’ve ever seen,” says Lou Pavlovich Jr., managing editor of Collegiate Baseball magazine.

Summer, 1991: Associate Athletic Director Leanne Grotke announces her resignation in June, and Titan Athletic Foundation director Walt Bowman announces his resignation in August, meaning that, in a six-month span, Fullerton has lost three-fourths of its athletic administration.

June 14, 1991: Shumard, a high-energy, highly personable administrator who spent 13 years working for the Dodgers and three years at USC, is named athletic director, effective Aug. 1.

“I think there are a tremendous amount of positive things happening or about to happen at this university,” Shumard says.

OK, he isn’t Carnac.

Sept. 28, 1991: The Titan football team stuns 76,117 fans in Georgia’s Sanford Stadium by giving the Bulldogs all they could handle before succumbing, 27-14. Georgia doesn’t seal the victory until Frank Harvey’s two-yard touchdown run with 32 seconds remaining.

Twice in the fourth quarter, Fullerton has possession in Georgia territory with a six-point deficit, and twice the Bulldogs stop the Titans for no gain on fourth-down plays, the final one with 3:25 left.

Nov. 23, 1991: The vagabond Fullerton football team plays its last game in Santa Ana Stadium, thrilling a throng of 2,123 by driving 86 yards in the final two minutes for a 37-36 victory over Cal State Long Beach.

Chad May’s 13-yard touchdown pass to Frank Davis gives the Titans their first victory over a Division I-A opponent in two years. For Long Beach, the ultimate indignity?

A few weeks later, the 49ers drop football.

Dec. 23, 1991: Near Miracle II: The Titan basketball team plays its best game of the season against second-ranked UCLA and gives 7,569 in Pauley Pavilion a good scare before losing, 86-80. Fullerton leads, 74-73, with 3:19 left, but UCLA pulls away with an 8-0 run.

Jan. 20, 1992: For the second time in three years, Murphy emerges as a finalist for the San Jose State coaching job. Once again, he loses out, this time to Stanford assistant Ron Turner.

Jan. 28, 1992: Citing a need to shift its priorities and resources, Fullerton drops the women’s volleyball and men’s gymnastics programs, and unveils a new “targeted sports model,” in which the athletic department hopes to place emphasis on what it does well.

Neither Huffman nor gymnastics Coach David Stow are consulted before the decision, which comes “as a total surprise,” Huffman said.

Feb. 3, 1992: Huffman and the volleyball team file a lawsuit against the school, claiming its decision to drop the program violates state sex-discrimination laws. A Superior Court Commissioner grants the team’s request for a temporary restraining order against the school’s action and sets a date for a preliminary injunction.

March 16, 1992: After weeks of speculation, Sneed’s tumultuous four-year tenure as Titan basketball coach comes to an end when the school announces it will not renew his contract.

Shumard cites a need “for new leadership” and a belief that “someone else can take us to a higher level” as primary reasons for the change.

March 17, 1992: The Office of Civil Rights begins a review of the Titan athletic department for possible Title IX violations. Shumard vows that “if we’re wrong, we want to make it right.”

March 20, 1992: A Superior Court judge signs a preliminary injunction ordering Fullerton to reinstate volleyball until a permanent injunction hearing. “This is a victory not only for the women on the volleyball team but for all women in California who play high school volleyball and aspire to compete in college,” attorney Kirk Boyd says.

March 23, 1992: Huffman, who had been at odds with Gordon during the eight-week court battle, saves his team but can’t save his job. A letter from the associate vice president of academic affairs states that Huffman’s contract won’t be renewed.

“One of the lessons Fullerton is trying to teach is that if you stand up for what’s right, you’ll get knocked down,” Huffman says. “That’s kind of a bad lesson to be teaching. . . . They feel it’s my fault that they got caught breaking the law.”

Will it ever end?

Worst-case scenario: Not until the athletic department declares Chapter 11.

Reasonable-case scenario: Yes, but the next year is crucial.

Most likely, there will be more upheaval before things calm down at Fullerton.

The review by the civil rights office could spur dramatic changes. Women’s teams could be added, and the school might have to funnel more funds into women’s sports--and away from men’s sports--to comply with Title IX.

The fund-raising campaign, which began as the nation was sinking into a recession, is not expected to reach its goals, and that might compound budgetary problems in the athletic department.

The school may have no choice but to downgrade football from Division I-A to a cost-containment, I-AA or I-AAA level after next season. And don’t be surprised if the school considers dropping the sport again.

But by next winter, the volleyball and Title IX issues probably will be resolved, football probably will have found its proper place--or its final resting place--the basketball coach will be in the first year of what is expected to be a three-year contract, and the major fund-raising campaign, whether it flourishes or flops, will be over.

And maybe Shumard--call him Smokey the Bill--can take a few days off from fighting fires.

“I’m sure the Lord tapped his foot and laughed at all this,” Shumard said. “I wanted this job for a lot of reasons, and I’m learning a lot of lessons, which is good. The flesh doesn’t like to be in all this, but my spirit likes to be on the cutting edge. I’m holding out hope that we can make sense out of the program and stabilize it.”

TITANS SCALE BACK: Cal State Fullerton will roll back its projected targets for athletic fund-raising. C8