The Party’s in Their Own Back Yard : Titans: Crowd of 8,279 attends first football game in university’s on-campus stadium. Parking lots alive with tailgate celebrations.

They were the few and the loyal. And it used to be hard for Cal State Fullerton football fans not to look foolish, eating chicken and grilling out in a nearly empty parking lot across from the Orange County Jail.

It was a different sort of party Saturday afternoon, as thousands of people tailgated in crowded campus parking lots in celebration of the first football game in the Titans’ new 10,000-seat stadium.

Outside the ticket booths, fans stood in lines 50 people deep a half-hour before the game, and cars waited in line to pay parking fees. Inside the stadium, booster Brian Fairley did handsprings at the 30-yard line when he was introduced among a group of donors before kickoff. Overhead, the Goodyear blimp glided by.

“This is what we’ve dreamed of,” said Tim Holland of La Habra, a 1978 Fullerton graduate who parked his family’s motor home outside the Titan Sports Complex and entertained 16 season ticket-holders. “There are thousands of people here--and they’re not looking for the swap meet at the Santa Ana Bowl.”

In some corners, the enthusiasm among the crowd of 8,279 was tempered by the irony that the stadium is opening with Fullerton football on shaky footing. After winning only three games during the last two seasons and nearly being dropped for financial reasons in January, 1991, the program faces continued rumors that it might be downgraded next season.

Todd Pierce, a 1992 graduate of Cal State Long Beach--which discontinued its football program after last season--joined some Fullerton buddies to watch the game.

“We figured if they were dumb enough to build a stadium, we would come,” Pierce said.

For the last seven seasons, the Titans have played their home games at Santa Ana Stadium, 10 miles from campus. Crowds were so small--as few as 2,000 for some games--that you could turn into the parking lot at the start of the national anthem and be in a seat on the 50-yard-line by the last note.

Gene Murphy, who has been waiting for a promised on-campus stadium for most of his 12 seasons as coach, used to joke about sending thank-you notes to each and every fan.

Now, after 22 seasons of wandering from temporary home to temporary home, the Titans have their own stadium--even if the locker room building in the south end zone is still a hollow, unusable shell with a dirt floor.

It might not be perfect yet, but it’s theirs.

“This is the first stadium we’ve played in besides the Cal Bowl in 13 years where the end zones had something to do with our school,” Murphy said.

One end says CSUF; the other says Titans.

Farewell to Santa Ana Stadium, Glover Stadium, Anaheim Stadium, Cerritos College; on the site where Murphy once oversaw the building of a makeshift bleacher stadium, the real thing now stands.

“This epitomizes what Cal State Fullerton athletics is all about: tenacity and perseverance,” Murphy said.

It was a day Murphy has sometimes doubted would ever come.

“I’ll be ready for the gerontology center before that stadium is up,” he said in 1987, when the Ruby Gerontology Center opened next door to the football offices and the stadium was still on the drawing board.

Truth be told, the Titans’ new stadium looks rather like Santa Ana Stadium, with its sunken field, stadium seating on the embankment and grassy hillsides.

It is the site and the crowd that are so different.

“I was at the ticket office during the week, and there were students in line,” said Dick Ackerman, a Fullerton city councilman and a driving force behind the project, jointly funded by the city and the university. “That was unusual. I don’t think they liked going to Santa Ana Stadium. This is right here in their back yard.”

Joy Adamson of Whittier and Mark Holiday of Buena Park, both Fullerton seniors who commute, had never been to a Titan football game, but they were in line for tickets Saturday.

“I heard a lot of people say they were coming,” Adamson said.

Rod Ammari of Garden Grove, a 1991 graduate, estimated he attended only three or four games during his college career.

“All homecomings,” he said. “It was just a pain to try to get up and go to Santa Ana. If they were playing here, I think I would have come to all the games.”

Holland and his wife, Patty, have attended games regularly since the mid-’70s, and on the windshield of the family motor home, there were two posters covered with photographs of the phases of the stadium’s construction.

“Once a week, I would come over and take a picture,” Tim Holland said. “(My friends and I) have been like 6-year-olds, little giggly girls for a week, calling each other to talk about what we would bring to eat.”

All the hoopla was of particular amazement to Tom Gang, who played for the Titans in ’88 and ’89 and was a graduate assistant coach for two seasons.

“To see this support in the parking lot--it’s 100% better than we ever had,” he said. “We were here just recently, ’88 and ‘89, and we never had anything like this. You can go to the other side of the parking lot, and it’s full, too. The whole thing is, as a Cal State Fullerton football player, you used to get more excited about road games than home games, instead of the other way around.”

Not having a home stadium has been one of Murphy’s biggest obstacles on the recruiting trail. Skeptical recruits would always ask where the Titans would be playing their home games, and Murphy would turn as evasive as a nimble kick returner.

“Oh,” he would say, covering his mouth with his hand and starting to mumble. “We’ll be playing at ruphymshrdlspst.”

Saturday night, Ruphymshrdlspst Stadium finally opened, with a 28-7 Fullerton victory.

Titan Top 10

The best home crowds in Fullerton football history:

60,415: at Los Angeles Coliseum vs. Grambling, Nov. 27, 1971

16,854: at Anaheim Stadium vs. Fresno State for Mercy Bowl, Dec. 11, 1971

12,121: at Santa Ana Stadium vs. Fresno State, Nov. 3, 1984

11,205: at Anaheim Stadium vs. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Nov. 12, 1970

9,260: at Santa Ana Stadium vs. San Jose State, Oct. 13, 1984

8,279: at Titan Sports Complex vs. Cal State Northridge, Sept. 5, 1992

8,110: at Santa Ana Stadium vs. Nevada Las Vegas, Oct. 19, 1985

7,831: at Cerritos Stadium vs. Cal State Long Beach, Sept. 17, 1977

7,301: at Titan Field vs. Northern Arizona, Sept. 27, 1980

7,282: at Titan Field vs. Fresno State, Sept. 6, 1980