CSUN Officials Try to Read Between Lines : College athletics: State university system’s gender-equity agreement not easily deciphered.

Their math skills already tested by budget shortfalls, Cal State Northridge athletic officials are having their reading comprehension abilities challenged by the language of an agreement between the California State University system and the California chapter of the National Organization for Women.

The CSU system this week announced it has agreed to require funding and participation parity in men’s and women’s sports by the 1998-99 school year. The action was part of a settlement of a lawsuit that NOW filed in February against the state system.

Under terms of the agreement, the 19 CSU campuses with NCAA athletic programs must:

-- Fund men’s and women’s sports programs within 10% of each other.

-- Provide athletic opportunities for women proportional to the number of NCAA-eligible female undergraduates on each campus, within 5%.

-- Provide scholarships for women’s sports in proportion to the number of eligible female undergraduates on each campus, within 5%.

What exactly those requirements mean for Northridge probably will not be determined anytime soon. School officials admitted Friday that they are unclear what formula should be used to make such calculations.

Ronald R. Kopita, Northridge’s vice president in charge of athletics, said “because of the new language” included in the settlement, “we’re still trying to figure out what it all means.”

During the 1992-93 school year, men’s sports accounted for about 60% of the athletic program’s budget for salaries, operations and scholarships.

Five years from now, Northridge would not be in compliance with the newly instituted guidelines, but Athletic Director Bob Hiegert said the school is “probably closer to meeting the financial guidelines than most other programs” in the state.

Debby De Angelis, the school’s associate athletic director for business affairs, went a step further. “I think Northridge, at 60-40, is a heckuva lot better off than the high school and junior college programs in this area,” she said.

The settlement is expected to force some universities to add women’s programs and possibly reduce men’s sports offerings. Northridge has, over a three-year period, taken steps toward adding a women’s soccer program.

Across the state, football is targeted as a sport likely to suffer from the agreement.

Eliminating football from the 1992-93 budget would have placed Northridge within the newly agreed funding guidelines.

Without football, $1,129,682--or 53.6%--of the athletic program’s remaining $2,106,076 budget for salaries, operations and scholarships would have gone to men’s sports.

Still, Kopita said, “the football program here is not in jeopardy.”

Added Hiegert: “The preference here would be to add women’s programs rather than subtract men’s programs.”

During the past school year, only 33% of Northridge athletes were women. However, women athletes received an average of $5,426 in scholarship and financial aid, compared to $3,907 for male athletes.