THE COLLEGES / MIKE HISERMAN : Cal State Ventura’s Hoop Grunions Should Survive Swimmingly

‘Tis the season for wishful thinking and future forecasting, so, with that in mind, we might as well go big. . . .

Major developments out west this week. After a search spanning more than three decades, a site deemed suitable for a new California State University campus has been located near Camarillo.

Ventura County’s first public four-year university will be born just as soon as a couple of bugs are worked out.

Nothing major. All that’s needed is money. Seems as though the state university system has enough cash stashed away to purchase the land, but not enough in reserve to build a campus on it.

Details, details.

Better work it out, folks. The good people of Ventura have been waiting too long for an alternative between Cal State Northridge and UC Santa Barbara.

They want their horizons expanded. They want their arts, literature and entertainment right along with their English 101.

And they want their Runnin’ Grunion.

You know, the Cal State Ventura Runnin’ Grunion.

The basketball team.

Soaring Seagulls?

Flying Fish?

Again, details, details.

The point is, Cal State Ventura is an NCAA Division I power just waiting to be hatched.

Finally, an alternative to the rodeos over at the Fairgrounds.

Mark these words: The Grunion will be thoroughbreds in a previously no-horse town. Just look at what’s happened with the Ventura College men’s basketball team.

Heck, Coach Philip (don’t call him Phil) Mathews and his troupe jam fans into the aisles of their old junior college gym just to watch a midnight practice.

Make it major-college hoops and the masses multiply.

Come to think of it, CSV should plan on hiring Mathews. He has roots in the area, has previous major-college experience as an assistant coach and is a proven recruiter.

Year in and year out his bunch is among the top juco crews in the state. Truth be told, there have been years--including this one--when the Pirates could sink at least a few of the nation’s 302 existing Division I ships.

This is not to say Mathews could do it alone. He would need a full complement of scholarships and, ideally, a tidy little 5,000-seat arena/student recreational resort with which to lure, er, attract players.

They could call it. . . .

The Sandcastle.

Goes right along with any of the nicknames.

Gotta stick with beach themes, though. Anything that inspires visions of the surf, sand and other natural beauties of the Central Coast. Just makes it that much easier for the basketball coaches to lure, er, attract, players from the frozen blacktops of Chicago and Detroit.

Notice we keep mentioning basketball?

These days colleges need a marquee sport to hang their hats on.

Some choose football. Others--the smart ones--pick basketball. It’s less expensive and a team needs fewer top players to immediately become competitive.

If nothing else, future Cal State Ventura officials will learn a lesson from the mistakes of their sister school to the east, Cal State Northridge.

Northridge is in its fifth year of competition at Division I. In the late ‘80s, when school officials announced their decision to raise every sport but football from Division II status, they almost simultaneously unveiled plans for a proposed 20,000-seat football stadium.

Conflicting signals. At Northridge, it’s a way of life.

Some teams have overcome. The men’s and women’s volleyball, baseball and softball teams at Northridge are considered among the best in the nation.

Others, like the winless women’s basketball team, have been overrun.

Northridge’s men’s basketball team has struggled but generally has remained competitive. Once in a while the Matadors pop up and bite a decent team like Cal State Long Beach.

But Northridge still plays in a facility that can best be compared to a typical high school gym.

As for the Northridge football program, still no stadium. And now there’s not even a billboard trumpeting a future stadium.

Those plans have collapsed, as has the team, which lately has been mired in losing seasons and embroiled in off-the-field controversy.

But enough about Northridge.

As far as Ventura goes, maybe we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves. Bureaucracy within the state system being what it is, the school probably won’t exist until the next millennium.

Right now there aren’t any administrators around to plan.

There are, however, architects, and to those folks one final word to the wise: Don’t build the Sandcastle over an earthquake fault.