Claremont-Mudd Eyes Options

There is a unique problem facing the Claremont-Mudd football program.

While many football programs have been discontinued to cut costs, Claremont-Mudd’s concern is the prospect of not having enough players. Injuries resulted in a shortage of players last season.

Claremont McKenna College President Jack Stark, in a letter to “All Interested Parties,” called for a meeting last Saturday to discuss what should be done about the program.

The meeting was attended by nearly 300 students, administrators, friends of the school and alumni and covered everything from how to attract more players to the program to the possibility of discontinuing the program.

The Claremont McKenna College Board will meet Thursday and vote on the future of the program.

Interestingly, the thought of discontinuing the program was brought about by John Zinda, the athletic director and coach who was concerned about the number of injuries to his players.

“It’s a question of can we be competitive within our conference in football--that’s the big question. It’s not a question of finance,” Stark said. “I stress ‘competitive’ because if you’re not, you risk injury. It’s a matter of not subjecting the students you put out there to physical injury.”

Injuries plagued the team.

“We started off with 45 players and we finished the season with 28 suited up,” Zinda said. “I think (the injuries) could all be attributed to the game of football. We didn’t have anybody playing out of position. The problem was having enough people.

“We had dropped down to seven lineman, that’s offensive and defensive, total. And we were going to train people to play both. So the question became: Would we have a viable football program?”

With the prospect of forfeiting the fifth game against Redlands, the team voted to continue the season despite the numbers. Claremont-Mudd finished the season 0-9 and was last in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in both total offense and total defense.

Soon thereafter, Zinda talked to Stark about options for the program. “That issue came as a surprise, frankly, to many of us,” Stark said, although Zinda said it’s an issue that he had been dealing with for several years.

So Stark called a meeting in a letter to 500 alumni to “know the opinions of the total CMC community.”

“The meeting lasted three hours. But the problem is that the football program needs greater numbers. It’s minimally double what the other teams need. The question is: Can we find enough competitive football players to keep us competitive?” Stark said. “I can tell you the people who showed up were very strong on maintaining a football program.”

Because Claremont-Mudd has such strict standards, recruiting continually has been a problem.

“The median SAT score at Claremont-Mudd is 1,280--to some extent that works against getting a very good football team because a lot of high school football players are not that academically oriented,” said Robert Dasseler, Claremont-Mudd’s public affairs director. “If we admitted a player who scored say, 1,150, he might not be competitive in the classroom and might leave after a year. He may have taken the place of another student who wasn’t a football player. If he plays football for one year and leaves, that’s like losing two students. So it makes recruiting very difficult.”

Which leaves Claremont-Mudd several options. The most attractive to those at the meeting would be to continue the program with an expanded staff to help with recruiting. The least of which would be to discontinue the program. Several other options have been discussed within the athletics department, but because they could involve other organizations, administrators were reluctant to elaborate before Thursday’s board meeting.

Stark will present the board with several options regarding the program--including continuing the program with added effort on being competitive, or discontinuing the program.

“We’re more interested in adding programs than taking one away,” Stark said.

College Division Notes

Mitsue Tomoyasu of Cal Poly Pomona was named to the Division II All-American first team in women’s volleyball. Tomoyasu, a senior outside hitter from Japan, led Pomona to the NCAA regionals, where the Broncos lost in the second round. Teammate Tami Chick was named to the second team. . . . Cal State Los Angeles’ Andrea Ferchaw, a freshman outside hitter, and Chapman’s Jenny Gunderson were also named to the second team. . . . Cal Lutheran’s Kristen Wegner was named to the Academic All-America District VIII first team. Wegner had 79 kills in 110 attempts and 49 digs. Julie Martinovich of Cal State Dominguez Hills was named to the second team. . . . Cal State Los Angeles lost, 15-7, 15-2, 15-7, to Portland State in the semifinals of the Division II NCAA women’s volleyball tournament. . . .James Shields of Redlands was named the school’s first All-American for Division II. Shields, a linebacker, was also named the SCIAC’s defensive player of the year. He had 145 tackles and 15 sacks in three years at Redlands.