This Time, Titans Ready for Equity Ruling

Since the Cal State University system’s settlement with the National Organization for Women last week, resulting in a booster shot of sorts for gender equity in athletics, university athletic officials are frantic all over the state. The exception is Cal State Fullerton where, thanks to the original lawsuit nearly two years ago when the school attempted to drop women’s volleyball, administrators have been preparing for this day.

Fullerton’s Gender Equality Committee, organized after the courts ordered the school to comply with state requirements and reinstate volleyball, has been meeting regularly and attempting to bring the department within guidelines of the court decree.

Last week’s settlement states, among other things, that university athletic departments must bring women’s participation in athletics to within 5% of men’s within the next five years. It also requires schools to bring funding for women’s sports in line with men’s by the 1998-99 school year.

At Fullerton, according to a report prepared for the Gender Equality Committee’s Oct. 15 meeting and obtained by The Times, men make up 55% of the school’s athletes and women 45%.

And in nine targeted gender-equity areas, the committee found the department lacking in five.

Still, Fullerton has a head start over many other schools in overall compliance.

According to the report issued by the Gender Equality Committee, the Titan athletic department is lacking in these areas:

--The women’s basketball program was found to be short by one assistant coach, according to NCAA maximum levels.

“We’ve got plans to fix that as quickly as we can, in a timely process,” Titan Athletic Director Bill Shumard said.

--Deficits were found in marketing and promotion for women’s sports.

“Because of staff and budget cuts, the department has no one to do promotions anymore,” Shumard said.

Translation: Larry Zucker, who handled athletic department promotions, including a big marketing effort with men’s basketball Coach Brad Holland, was moved to administrative fund-raising. So women’s sports will not be lacking in promotions compared to the men’s this year because the men will not have any promotions, either.

--Women’s teams were found to have lesser locker facilities, competitive and practice.

The women’s locker room is smaller than the men’s, and because of architectural design problems, the softball field was waterlogged much of last season. Sal Rinella, Fullerton’s vice president for administration, said he has obtained funds to have the problem corrected by next spring.

--Women’s teams received smaller per diem allowances.

“We’ve fixed that for this year,” Shumard said. “If you took all five sports (men’s and women’s basketball, baseball, softball and women’s volleyball), you’d see that they all had different (per diem) figures depending on how the coaches chose to handle the travel.”

So Fullerton has standardized the amounts this year: $15 is designated for each athlete’s food needs for each day while on a trip.

“We feel good about it,” Shumard said. “When I came here (in 1991), depending on which figures you accepted, the men’s to women’s participation ratio was 70-30, or 75-25. It’s certainly come a long way.”

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The biggest question remaining in relation to the gender equity issue at Fullerton is football. School officials, upon dropping the sport last November, said it would be back in 1994.

This year’s budget has money set aside to hire a football coach Jan. 1, 1994, but things have been suspiciously quiet on the football front.

And now gender equity presents a huge stumbling block. Bring back a football team, and it will add a minimum of 50 or 60 men on the athletic department roll call--and that throws the ratio of participating men to women off kilter.

And with a tight budget, you can bet that Fullerton will not be adding women’s sports to balance a football program.

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Ouch: Fullerton plays host to the Big West cross-country championships Saturday at Carbon Canyon Park in Brea, and suddenly, the women’s team is in bad shape.

Junior Heather Killeen, runner-up in last year’s championships, suffered a strained left hip flexor Thursday, and it is unlikely that she will participate.

“It’s serious enough right now that she can’t even run, and she’s having trouble walking,” Coach John Elders said Tuesday. “That really hurts our women’s chances.”

As for the men, Mike Tansley, the defending conference champion, appears to be peaking.

“He looks great right now,” Elders said. “He was second at the Arizona State Invitational last week with the fastest time in the Big West, a 24-flat (over 8,000 meters).”

The women’s race, in which UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara are co-favorites, begins at 10:30 a.m. Saturday. The men, in which Fullerton, UCSB and Utah State are the favorites, begin at 9:30 a.m.

Titan Notes

The first of the college basketball preview magazines are out, and you guessed it: Fullerton is picked to finish 10th in the Big West by The Sporting News, Street and Smith’s and NCAA Preview. . . . Still another reason to be glad that Fullerton dropped football: Big West teams, in nonconference games, are a collective 10-30.