COMMENTARY : It’s Time to Toast Matadors

By rights, Cal State Northridge’s 3,000-seat gymnasium should be filled tonight, the fans packed like sardines all the way up to the creaky old rafters.

If ever a college basketball team deserved a hero’s welcome, the Matadors are it.

No, Northridge is not returning home after rising from the depths of the sport’s computer ratings to slay a top-ranked team.

In fact, it has accomplished much more. The Matadors have shown themselves, and their campus community, a will to survive.

Northridge is not among the best basketball teams, but the Matadors have proved themselves a unit to be admired.

Team Tragedy lives.

On Jan. 17, the date the Northridge campus was near the epicenter of a 6.8 earthquake, the Matadors were in Boulder, Colo., preparing for a basketball game.

Some have said that they were fortunate being away. The consensus among players is the opposite. Theirs was a feeling of helplessness.

Between frantic attempts to reach family and friends by telephone, Northridge players watched television news reports and tried to console one another.

Then, that evening, they went out and played spirited basketball before faltering at the end of a 100-85 loss against Colorado.

School officials urged the team to finish the trip by staying in Colorado to play Air Force two days later in Colorado Springs. Coach Pete Cassidy, with the unanimous backing of his players, chose to return home.

What the players found, in many cases, were ruins.

Peter Micelli and Chris Yard were considered the lucky ones. The home they share with two friends sustained only minor damage. It quickly became a sanctuary for several displaced Northridge athletes.

On Jan. 19, Nicholas Micelli, Peter’s father, stopped at the house to deliver water and other needed supplies. Micelli, an attorney and a staunch supporter of the Northridge basketball team, was on his way to the Bay Area to work on a case.

It was the last time his son would see him alive. The following day, Nick Micelli was found dead of an apparent heart attack.

Jolted again.

Cassidy called off practice for a week to allow his players to piece their lives together. Workouts resumed Jan. 25, the day after Micelli’s funeral.

Two days after that, the Matadors learned that Yard, one of the team’s top players, had a torn knee ligament requiring major reconstructive surgery.

Micelli and Yard, no longer the lucky ones.

Northridge lost when it resumed its season Jan. 29 against Northeastern Illinois in Chicago. Then it was on to South Bend, Ind., and Sacramento, reporters and camera crews following all the while.

The newspaper stories and television reports only briefly mentioned the games. Instead, they focused on basketball being “therapeutic” for this hearty band of shellshocked coaches and athletes.

Cassidy was particularly engaging after a lopsided loss against Notre Dame. Faced with persistent questions about how the quake might affect recruiting, he launched into an animated dissertation about the odds of a natural disaster striking the same place twice.

Northridge, he proclaimed, might indeed be the safest place on earth.

Matador players seemed to follow their coach’s lead, calmly fielding questions that only a seismologist would be qualified to answer.

When the world shakes, basketball falls fast on the priority list. Yet Northridge has not embarrassed itself on the court.

Even in a 30-point loss against 19th-ranked California, the Matadors played hard and well enough to earn smatterings of applause from an otherwise partisan Golden Bear crowd.

Now comes time for the roar.

Northridge has not played at home in six weeks. The Matadors deserve a welcome befitting the class act they have become.

The Matadors, 5-16, will meet Grand Canyon (Ariz.), a 10-12 Division II team, tonight at 7.

Two mediocre basketball teams. There are other shows around town.

The Olympics are on television. The Lakers are playing the Clippers at the Forum.

Parking is a problem because of the collapse of an almost new, supposedly earthquake-proof, three-tiered parking structure located next to to the Northridge athletic administration building.

Finding the gym might pose an entirely different challenge. Hundreds of temporary classrooms have turned Northridge into what looks like the world’s largest trailer park.

The campus is a maze.

The wallet will have to take a $5 hit.

Come anyway.