Soccer Could Provide Titan Athletic Budget With Needed Kick
Cal State Fullerton is negotiating with a Montebello doctor to lure a professional soccer team to the Titan Sports Complex, a deal that could bring much-needed revenue to the school’s financially strapped athletic department.
The new 10,000-seat, on-campus stadium is one of three home fields being considered by the Los Angeles Salsa, which will begin play in the American Professional Soccer League in May. The others are Veterans Stadium in Long Beach and East Los Angeles College.
William De La Pena, an ophthalmologist who owns the team, is out of the country and couldn’t be reached for comment, but Dick White, a consultant who is working for the team and the league, said, “If things fall right, Fullerton would be the doctor’s choice.”
While the team has concerns about the unfinished locker-room facilities in the complex, it is impressed with the playing field and its surroundings.
“It’s the best soccer facility I’ve ever seen because they made the field wide enough for soccer and there’s no track,” said White, who previously worked under Jack Kent Cooke at The Forum and once managed the L.A. Sports Arena. “If there’s a better soccer facility in the country, I’d like to see it.”
White declined to reveal specifics of the negotiations, but the team probably would pay a certain percentage of gate receipts to the school for each match and fees to cover security, ticket-takers, ushers and other game-day operations.
It wouldn’t be enough to balance Fullerton’s athletic budget, but it would be an additional source of revenue that would come at virtually no cost to the school.
The Salsa, which will bring the number of APSL teams to six, will play on Saturdays from May until September, and White expects the team to play about 20 home matches per season. Other teams in the league are Tampa Bay, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Denver and San Francisco.
The league, which also hopes to expand to Dallas, Chicago, Washington and Boston, is an amalgamation of the Western and American soccer leagues.
There were 15 teams in the APSL three years ago, but stricter U.S. Soccer Federation franchise requirements, which called for regulation-sized fields and $1 million budgets, forced many teams to fold.
White said a final decision on a home-field site for the Salsa probably would come in July.
Over and out: Big East football will not be coming to Fullerton, and the Titans won’t be going to the Big East. Contracts calling for a home-and-home series with Temple (at Fullerton in 1993, at Temple in 1995) and for the Titans to play at Syracuse in 1993 have been canceled.
Temple associate athletic director Earl Cleghorn said his school terminated the agreement because the new Big East schedule, effective in 1993, wouldn’t allow the Owls to play the Titans on the dates they had agreed upon.
But Syracuse Athletic Director Jake Crouthamel said he reached agreement with Fullerton Athletic Director Bill Shumard to cancel the game because of concerns that the Titans might downgrade their program.
“The possibility of them going to Division I-AA (initiated the termination of the contract),” Crouthamel said. “We had heard talk about that, and we prefer not to play I-AA teams.”
Shumard said Fullerton will remain committed to I-A football throughout a $5-million, 18-month fund-raising campaign, which after 14 months has raised about one-fifth ($1.2 million) of its goal.
On line: The staff of new Titan basketball Coach Brad Holland is now complete with the hiring of full-time assistant Bob Hawking and part-time assistant Ed Goorjian, Holland’s coach when he played at Crescenta Valley High School. They join Chris Brazier, whom Holland previously announced as a full-time assistant.
Hawking, 43, coached at Simi Valley High from 1974-88 before moving to the college level, where he spent two years as a part-time assistant at Pepperdine and two as a full-time assistant at UC Davis. He will be Holland’s No. 1 assistant and recruiting coordinator.
Goorjian, 65, spent 19 years at Crescenta Valley (1960-79), one season as Glendale College’s head coach and another as a Loyola Marymount assistant before being the Lions’ head coach for five years.
He worked under Fullerton Coach George McQuarn in 1985-86, spent two years coaching in Saudi Arabia, then one as an assistant under USC Coach George Raveling and the last three under former Nevada Las Vegas Coach Jerry Tarkanian.
“It will be kind of strange to have him on my staff, but I felt I could really use his experience and seasoning,” Holland said of Goorjian. “He’s sort of my mentor, and to acquire some of his knowledge will benefit me.”
Add basketball: James French, a 6-foot-2 point guard who started 37 games for Washington during the past two seasons, will transfer to Fullerton, Holland said. After next year’s red-shirt season, French will have two years of eligibility.
French, who attended El Cerrito High in the Bay Area, was a full-time starter as a freshman but a part-time starter as a sophomore, when he averaged 4.1 points and 2.5 assists. Holland said French is an excellent ballhandler who can penetrate and shoot from the outside.
Pittsfield stop: Titan pitcher James Popoff has signed a professional contract with the New York Mets and will report today to the team’s short-season, Class-A affiliate in Pittsfield, Mass.
The right-handed Popoff, a 27th-round pick of the Mets, was Fullerton’s ace this past season, going 13-3 with a 2.79 earned-run average and 134 strikeouts. He was 1-1 with a 1.65 ERA and one save in the College World Series and and was a series all-tournament selection.
Titan Notes
The fifth Jerry Goodwin golf tournament, which benefits the Fullerton athletic department, will be held July 13 at the Yorba Linda Country Club. A registration fee of $225 per golfer includes greens fees, cart, golf shirt, continental breakfast, lunch, prime rib dinner and auction, refreshments on the course, balls, tees and markers. A corporate foursome, which includes banners, tee signs and a banquet table for 10, can be purchased for $1,500. Registration begins at 9:30 a.m., and there will be a shotgun start at 11 a.m. For further information, contact the Fullerton athletic office at 773-3480.
