CSUN Set Precedent for Running a Reverse : Football: When the Matador program reached a crossroads at end of tempestuous ‘60s, the school turned back. Decision to go on again faces administration.

The current football crisis at Cal State Northridge--a decision whether to terminate the program is expected by Monday--has rekindled feelings of betrayal among former players.

In 1967, the Matadors played in the Junior Rose Bowl, were ranked seventh in the NCAA College Division with a 6-4 record and seemed to be heading down a path that eventually would lead to big-time football. But they took a detour. Instead of using the 1967 season as a catalyst to expand the program, Northridge purposely went in the opposite direction for the next few years, angering and frustrating players from that era.

“We had the opportunity to go forward with the program 25 years ago,” said Al Racius, a defensive back on the ’67 team. “But (Northridge) didn’t take any steps to put the team on the football map.”

Cuts in the team’s operating budget in the late ‘60s hurt morale and recruiting. Coach Sam Winningham retired after the Matadors went 5-4 in 1968, and the Matadors took a nose-dive, posting only one winning record in the next seven years and going through four coaches in 10 years. By the ‘80s, Fresno State, San Diego State, Cal State Fullerton and Cal State Long Beach grew into Division I football teams, but Northridge remained a level below.

“The ’67 season should have been a turning point, but the administration, the faculty and the community didn’t jump on the bandwagon,” said Winningham, who is now 66 and lives in Northridge.

The Matadors currently have strong campus backing and an endorsement from a blue-ribbon panel to continue their 31-year-old program, but the 1967 team was treated like an outcast. Victims of the ‘60s counterculture revolution, the players were regarded by students and faculty as tools of the Establishment, not big men on campus.

“It was uncool to be in fraternities or athletics,” said Racius, who lives in Thousand Oaks.

But it was cool to be a student activist. When it came time for the 1968-69 student government to divvy up student fees--which paid for the team’s equipment and travel costs--the football budget was slashed “substantially” in order to fund left-wing groups such as Students for a Democratic Society, Northridge Athletic Director Bob Hiegert said.

Northridge faculty members not only supported the students but “encouraged them to be involved in unrest and civil disorder,” said Michael Hannin, a tight end in ’67. “They hated anything to do with traditional college life.”

According to Hannin, the program’s problems over the years can be traced to “hippie” faculty members whose aim was to “devalue the program and destroy it from within.”

Winningham understands his former players’ bitterness but doesn’t see anything sinister in Northridge’s motives.

“A good, aggressive, young football player hopes in his heart he’s the start of something big,” Winningham said, “and he may look back and say (the Matadors) had a chance to go big-time, but it’s not like the school bailed out on football. We had a lot of things going against us. The team had potential then, but the university had some other priorities.”

Hippies alone weren’t responsible for bursting the football program’s bubble after the ’67 season; the school itself was not prepared for the big time. “We didn’t have the resources to go all out,” said Winningham, who became chairman of the physical education department after leaving coaching.

Known then as San Fernando Valley State College, Northridge was only 10 years old in 1967 and intercollegiate football, established in 1961, was still in its “formative years,” Hiegert said. The Matadors didn’t even have a stadium--an NCAA requirement for Division I participation--and played at Birmingham High. San Diego State, which was the nation’s top-ranked College Division team in ‘67, and Fresno State each had its own stadium as well as a bigger budget than Northridge.

Hiegert, who coached Northridge baseball in the late ‘60s, said former players were being “unrealistic” to think the Matadors were ready to move up, “considering what we could draw and what our superstructure was for campus and community support. We also weren’t eligible (for Division I)--we couldn’t conform to NCAA standards.”

Former players like to compare Fresno State’s recent success to Northridge’s failures; if history had unfolded differently, they say, it could have been Northridge, not Fresno, beating USC in last season’s Freedom Bowl. “Fresno made a commitment to their football team (25 years ago) and hired capable people,” Hannin said. “We have just as capable people and more of a community to draw on but no commitment.”

But rushing into Division I years ago also could have been a mistake, Hiegert said. Look what happened to the football programs at Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach: They went out of business. Fullerton, Hiegert said, is an example of a school moving too fast too soon. A year older than Northridge, Fullerton jumped to Division I in 1974, using Anaheim Stadium to meet NCCA requirements. But the program was never on sound financial footing. Last December, school administrators, citing “fiscal reality,” dropped the sport for at least a year; if it does come back, it will not be in Division I-A.

“They should have pulled the plug a long time ago,” Hiegert said. “They might have been better off going to Division II (in 1974).”

Another factor contributing to the Matadors’ slow progress in football is the lack of a strong alumni association. Unlike their counterparts at USC and UCLA, Northridge “alumni have been dormant,” said Hannin, who lives in Woodland Hills.

“That needs to change,” he says, so the ’67 team is spearheading efforts to organize alumni into a powerful force with which to voice support for the embattled football program.

“The Hannins and Raciuses of the world who want to see us improve have to step up and help us,” Hiegert said. “If that happens, we’ll be in great shape.”

If the football program doesn’t get the death sentence from Northridge President Blenda J. Wilson, Hannin is prepared to send a letter to every former player requesting a $25 donation or the purchase of two season tickets.

“(Wilson) asked those who want football to put their money where their mouth is,” Hannin said, “and she’s right.