Ealy Caught in Middle of a Tempest

She is, after five years, the voice of experience.

In May, Bridgette Ealy left Cal State Northridge with a diploma and memories of four seasons as a standout women’s basketball player. She is among the school’s all-time leaders in steals, assists, rebounds and blocked shots.

But she did not walk away fulfilled.

Ealy, who aspires to a career in sports administration, knows that the athletic program she leaves behind at Northridge is a troubled one.

And so she is troubled.

As far back as her days at Chaffey High, Ealy approached athletics in a professional manner. It was her means to winning a scholarship, a major step in earning a coveted college degree.

“Where I came from, my background, we struggled,” said Ealy, 22, one of five African-American players on the women’s basketball team last season. “So I was there for school. School came first.”

In Ealy’s view, college recruiting “should be a good business deal.”

She is aware that college coaches often descend on high schools in low-income areas when they run out of scholarship money, the trick being to secure the services of athletes who can qualify for large amounts of state-funded financial aid.

This, according to Ealy, rates as a really good business deal--for the school and for an athlete who would otherwise be unable to attend college.

“But when they get here, don’t just run them through the system,” she said. “Give them opportunity, try to teach them and try and have them understand and be better and get educated and don’t just say, ‘You’re here to play football because you wouldn’t have come to college any other way.’ ”

During her time at Northridge, Ealy saw some great deals become raw deals. She saw young women and young men become engulfed in a turbulent sea of academic and economic responsibilities.

“I look at all the stuff that has gone on, nothing being resolved, and it’s kind of irritating,” Ealy said. “I worked hard here to help establish a program and now I’m watching it be destroyed because of a bad reputation.”

Ealy was a member of the six-member task force that was formed in May to examine whether African-American athletes at Northridge were being treated fairly. She agrees wholeheartedly with the committee’s conclusions.

She cites the need for more academic advisers, a meal plan and additional black coaches.

But five months ago Ealy bristled when African-American faculty members and students publicly accused the Northridge athletic program of racism and called for the resignation of Athletic Director Bob Hiegert.

“I don’t think they knew,” Ealy said of athletic program officials. “They don’t understand the African-American athlete because they don’t know our culture, where we come from.”

Ealy was prepared to work for change. But she feels her efforts were thwarted by uncompromising demands of the Black Student Union and fledgling Black Student-Athletic Assn.

“I was helping the BSAA, thinking they could help the athletic department,” Ealy said. “I thought we were all trying to help because we all understand (the athletic program’s) struggle because the university as a whole does not support athletics.

“But it became more complicated than it had to be. We needed some heads put together. Instead, we were divided.”

On March 12, the day after the campus rally at which the BSU and BSAA made their complaints and demands public, Ealy and football player Cornell Ward met with Hiegert and Judy Brame, an associate athletic director.

Ealy seized that opportunity to distance herself from demands made the previous day, but she also outlined a plan of attack against some of the problems that she said plague African-American athletes at Northridge.

“My most important thing was the need for academic advisement,” Ealy said. “If you don’t do well in school, you’re not going to be there to need a meal plan.”

Why, Ealy asked, were students who had difficulty passing the most basic college English course sometimes simultaneously enrolled in biology and psychology classes that demanded advanced reading comprehension skills?

In the absence of advisers, Ealy suggested head coaches be responsible for studying transcripts and test scores and offering academic counseling.

Ealy also proposed an orientation session for incoming freshmen and transfer students, to be attended by both the students and their parents.

Among the recommended topics of discussion: How to budget your finances.

“You don’t know how to budget money if you’ve never had it,” Ealy reasoned. “So the first thing you might do with that $2,500 check is go out and get shoes, clothes and buy yourself a good meal.

“You have to discipline yourself not only to participate in sports but also to budget your money and manage your time for school and sports.”

All of which Ealy said seemed to make perfect sense to both administrators. It must have. On Sunday, Northridge is scheduled to host its inaugural orientation for incoming athletes and their parents.

But Ealy did not have the last word. Both the BSU and BSAA continued to call for Hiegert’s resignation. Ealy says the result of those demands was predictable. Instead of being able to concentrate on solving problems, the athletic program spent a great deal of time defending itself.

“If you keep putting a man back up against a wall, he’s not going to take time to sit down and say, ‘OK, this is what is needed,’ ” Ealy said. “He’s going to protect himself, like anybody would.

“People say, ‘Well, but (Hiegert is) very defensive,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, and if I went public saying you were racist, you would just take it?’ ”

In Ealy’s view, the athletic program does not need new leadership as much as it needs a renascent plan. “We need people to learn,” she said. “The athletic department needs a little fixing, just like I think the whole university does.”