He’ll Whistle While He Works : Football: Dave Baldwin, Cal State Northridge’s new coach, anticipates enjoying the long and strenuous workdays ahead.

Let the 15-hour days begin.

Cal State Northridge made it official Friday and named alumnus Dave Baldwin the eighth football coach in school history.

Now, the work begins.

On Monday, Baldwin will start retooling a program that hasn’t signed a player in 1995, begin interviewing applicants for seven assistant coaching positions, pass a test on NCAA recruiting regulations. . . .

Get the idea?

“I’ll be working a lot of 15-hour days,” Baldwin said. “But I’ll be the guy in the tie with the silly grin on my face.”

Actually, he’s already beaming.

Baldwin, a receiver at Northridge from 1975 to 1977, openly campaigned for the position. He called Northridge alums and asked his coaching contacts to stump on his behalf. Jack Elway, a former Northridge coach who hired Baldwin as an assistant at San Jose State and Stanford, called to lobby.

“I wanted this job very badly,” said Baldwin, 40, who graduated from Northridge in 1978. “I pursued it from the very first day. In the back of my mind, I always wanted to come back to Northridge.”

He didn’t stray far.

Last fall, he coached at Santa Rosa Junior College, taking a team that was 1-19 in its two previous seasons to a bowl appearance and an 8-3 record. From 1989 to 1993, he coached at Santa Barbara City. Over his last three seasons at Santa Barbara, he commuted from Simi Valley.

When Baldwin took the Santa Rosa position, he was unable to sell his Simi Valley house because of the earthquake and a sluggish real-estate market. Instead, he leased the home. Once the lease expires over the summer, living arrangements are all set.

What’s more his wife, Kathleen, a Northridge graduate and special-education teacher, took a leave of absence from the Conejo Valley Unified School District when the family moved to Santa Rosa. Another problem solved.

“Obviously, things turned out well all the way around,” Baldwin said.

Northridge Athletic Director Bob Hiegert said Baldwin received a two-year contract--one more than the norm for a first-year Northridge coach--because of the circumstances involved in the hiring.

Uncertainty surrounding the program’s funding future and the resignation of nine-year coach Bob Burt in March left the team in a state of flux for months.

“I think it would be unfair to evaluate him on one season, considering,” Hiegert said.

Baldwin coached at San Jose State from 1980-84 and at Stanford from 1984-88. In his final season at Stanford, he was offensive coordinator and has developed a reputation as a coach who loves the passing game.

Hiegert, who served on the selection committee, said Baldwin was positively gung-ho about landing the position.

“The thing that made him stand out in my mind was that he had a real enthusiasm about the program,” said Hiegert, who once had Baldwin as a student in a couple of physical-education courses. “He seemed to have the energy and drive.”

Senior receiver David Romines, the player representative on the selection committee, said he was impressed by the regional connections of Baldwin, who played at Granada Hills High and coached in the area’s premier junior college alignment, the Western State Conference, while at Santa Barbara.

Knowing the landscape will help a team in dire need of new recruits.

“He played here, he knows the surroundings, he knows Northridge and the teams we play,” Romines said.

“I think he’ll step in, take charge and give this team some direction.”

He’ll need to. Northridge was 3-7 last fall and hasn’t had a winning season since 1990. Romines considers the hiring a step in reversing the trend.

“Finally, I think we know what we’re gonna do,” Romines said. “He’ll give us a solid foundation and we’ll build from there.”