Lloyd Still True to the Titans Despite Hardships

The airplane departed for Georgia last Sept. 18, a Friday, leaving one era and heading into another.

This was three weeks into what would be Cal State Fullerton’s final season in Division I football, but that decision was still a couple of months away.

The strange thing about this trip? Jerry Lloyd was not on the plane.

Lloyd was the first athletic trainer hired by Fullerton and, since that day in 1969, rarely has a Titan football or basketball team played when Lloyd was not standing on the sideline or sitting on the bench.

But Lloyd has polycystic kidney disease and, since last July, the days when he felt sick began to outnumber the days when he felt well. He started kidney dialysis in the fall and has been on sick leave since the academic year started.

And when they put away the basketball uniforms after last weekend’s Big West Conference tournament, it was the first time in 24 years that Lloyd had closed out a season before the Titans.

Lloyd, who is awaiting a kidney transplant, still hasn’t gotten used to staying home when the Titans are on the road.

“To tell you the truth, that bothered me,” he said. “We’re creatures of habit, and to do something for that many years. . .

“On Saturdays and Sundays for 24 years, I was used to going to Cal State and covering a game. I would treat players on Sundays, or we would be coming off a road trip.”

But dialysis started, and suddenly the man who always had taken care of others had to worry about himself.

“I would go to dialysis on Saturdays, and on Sundays, I would sometimes ask myself, ‘What am I doing at home?’ ” said Lloyd, a 1969 graduate of Cal State Long Beach.

But doctors told him in August that his gall bladder had to be removed, and then he began dialysis. Doing that twice a week keeps him on the disabled list.

Still, Lloyd attended home football and basketball games this season. But missing road games drove him nuts. Since Fullerton started playing football in 1970, Lloyd, 50, figured he had missed only three games--one at New Mexico State when his mother died two years ago, and the last two of the 1979 season, when he accompanied the national champion Titan baseball team on a tour of Taiwan.

And Lloyd figures he had missed between five and 10 basketball games since 1969.

Many of those came when Bobby Dye was hired as coach for the 1973-74 season, and the Titans went on a Texas trip that included stops at Texas Arlington, Southern Methodist and North Texas State. The budget didn’t allow for a trainer, so Dye doubled as the medical staff.

That lasted one trip.

“Dye told the athletic director he wouldn’t be traveling if I didn’t travel,” said Lloyd, laughing.

Figuring that it would benefit the team if the head coach worked the road games, too, the administration agreed that, in the future, Lloyd would travel.

It has been quite a ride, giving Lloyd so many memories he is hard-pressed to pick his favorites. From going to the NCAA basketball tournament’s final eight (1978) to the College World Series (1979, 1984, 1988, 1990 and 1992) to the National Invitation Tournament (1983 and 1987), Lloyd has dozens of stories.

Then there are the athletes. “Over everything else, we’ve had so many good people at Fullerton,” he said.

On so many occasions, Lloyd has watched a Titan come through during clutch time. Now it is time for Lloyd to borrow some of that magic for himself.

He has lost between 20 and 25 pounds since August, and the dialysis machines sometimes rob him of his strength.

He is on a list of patients awaiting a kidney transplant, a wait that could take as long as two years.

“I look at the dialysis unit and I don’t feel sorry for myself at all,” Lloyd said. “There are people in there who are blind, or who have had body parts amputated; you see kids who are 5, 6 and 7 who will have to go through (dialysis) all of their lives.

“I’ve known about my problem for nine years; I knew it was coming. I’ve had a good run of health for 23 years at Cal State Fullerton. I never missed a day because of sickness.”

For the first time ever, the Titan softball team is not ranked nationally in the top 20.

Coach Judi Garman, who started the program in 1980, is not worried, though.

“A lot of teams that were ahead of us hadn’t played a game yet,” Garman said. “For example, Massachusetts was 12th, came out here last week and went something like 2-8 or 2-10. Schools like that are going to disappear from the top 20.

“We weren’t playing well; I don’t think we should be near the top. But I think there are some ridiculous choices of teams that were put ahead of us.”

Fullerton, after a slow start, is 14-10. The Titans have won eight in a row and are host to the Pony Tournament, featuring six of the nation’s top seven teams, beginning Wednesday.

Mister, can you spare some bucks?

Fans at Sunday’s Fullerton-New Mexico State baseball game were handed letters addressed “Dear Titan Baseball Fan” and signed by three parents of Titan players asking for donations so the team can fly to Reno for a three-game series in early April, rather than take a 10- or 11-hour bus ride.

Seems the team has been on the road a lot early and the parents are worried about missed class time. The Titan athletic budget is so tight it couldn’t squeeze out the extra $3,800 or so it would cost to fly, so a bus was reserved.

Some parents talked to Athletic Director Bill Shumard, brushed up on what the NCAA rules allowed and began raising money through the Titan Athletic Foundation.

Shumard confirmed Monday the team will fly to Reno.

Titan Notes

The Titan baseball team moved from seventh to sixth in the Baseball America poll and from 12th to eighth in the Collegiate Baseball poll . . . Gummi Bear Update: Since Coach Judi Garman started putting Gummi Bears on the bench and letting her players take one if they meet certain requirements, the Titans have won eight in a row and have scored 51 runs while giving up only three. . . . Tiffany Boyd, who had a perfect game against New Mexico State last week, was named Big West pitcher of the week.