NO VACANCY : Erroneous News Item Results in Flood of Basketball Coaches Contacting CSUN

Oh what a difference a typographical error can make--even when it’s in small print.

The Cal State Northridge athletic department has received several calls during the past week from coaches interested in applying for the supposedly vacant position as head coach of the women’s basketball team.

One problem: Northridge already has a coach, Kim Chandler.

So why the calls?

It seems that last week when USA Today published the announcement of assistant Cheryl Kennedy leaving to become head coach at the University of Wisconsin LaCrosse, the paper misidentified her as Northridge’s head coach.

Other coaches assumed Northridge had an opening for a head coach.

“We got calls from all over,” said Barry Smith, Northridge’s sports information director.

Once Northridge officials figured out what happened, they had some fun with the callers. Asked by one person whether Chandler had been fired, Smith shot back, “I don’t think so. I just saw her earlier today at breakfast with the vice president. She was smiling.”

All this was news to Chandler, however. She was not informed about the misprint.

“I did not know anything about it,” Chandler said. “This is the first I’ve heard of it. If you can find some positives out of it, people are interested in the program.”

Chandler’s teams have posted records of 2-24 and 8-19 her first two seasons. But she is not surprised by the interest in her job. The Matadors will soon be on the rise, she said, in the wake of the devastating 1993-94 season.

“We were better player for player last season,” she said. “But we had one career-ending knee injury and another that forced a player out of eight games. We had one player diagnosed with cancer and she’s doing very well now.

“My father was diagnosed with cancer and he’s had extensive surgery and now is going through chemotherapy. We had three players hurt in a car accident and two dismissed for disciplinary purposes. And, of course we had the earthquake.”

Chandler said the nine recruits she has signed for next season have drawn praise from USA Today and coaches across the nation.

“People understand there are possibilities, and the possibilities are going to become reality,” Chandler said.

This is not the first time Northridge was been bitten by the misinformation bug.

In 1988, wire services announced that former Colorado State baseball coach Ran Railey had been hired to coach at Northridge.

They were half right. Railey had been hired by Northridge--as the athletic program’s fund raiser.

Northridge asked for, and received, a note of clarification on the wires--much to the relief of Terry Craven, Northridge’s baseball coach at the time.

Staff writer Dana Haddad contributed to this story.