Supporters Feel Hiegert Was Singled Out Unfairly : Reaction: Northridge fault didn’t run through athletic director’s office, his backers say.

Befitting a man whose ties to Cal State Northridge stretch across five decades, Bob Hiegert’s friends and colleagues reacted emotionally to news of his official dismissal as the school’s athletic director.

Some were saddened. Others voiced shock and dismay. A few expressed outrage.

All offered the same question: How could Hiegert, who devoted most of his adult life to Northridge athletics, get dumped so unceremoniously?

“It’s a real tragedy,” said Gary Torgeson, a former football and softball coach at Northridge. “[Hiegert] has busted his rear end to make it a Division I program, and this is the thanks he gets from the administration? It’s a real slap in the face to a guy who worked his whole life for that school.”

Torgeson, who left Northridge last year to become athletic director at Sacramento City College, said the wrong person is being blamed for the Northridge athletic department operating at a deficit in recent years.

“A national problem with [school] administrations is that when the going gets tough, they get rid of a coach or an athletic administrator to make themselves look better,” Torgeson said. “It’s too bad because it took a lot of work to get that program going.

“If you look back, Northridge has done some pretty fantastic things without much money, with nothing. They have done it with mirrors.”

Under Hiegert’s guidance, Northridge was the nation’s top Division II school in all sports in the 1980s, winning numerous NCAA titles. In 1990, Hiegert oversaw the school’s difficult transition to Division I status in all sports except football.

The challenges to maintain a successful and profitable athletic department in the face of declining enrollment, last year’s earthquake and other factors have been daunting. But, for the most part, Torgeson said Hiegert was doing a commendable job.

“They wouldn’t be where they are right now without Bob Hiegert,” said Torgeson, who coached the Matador softball team to the Division I title game in 1994. “When he saw the Division II situation in Southern California falling apart, he had the insight to push the administration to go to Division I.

“If the administration is not giving him credit, they’re nuts.”

Hiegert’s presence on the Northridge campus has been felt since 1959, the year he began playing shortstop at what was then San Fernando Valley State College. Hiegert, 53, who played two years in the Angels’ organization, became Northridge baseball coach in 1966 and held the position for 18 seasons, resigning in 1984 to devote his full attention to serving as athletic director, a position he held since 1978.

Tony Davila, longtime women’s tennis coach at Northridge, played baseball with Hiegert in college and said his former teammate was a fiery competitor, something he learned first-hand when they played against each other in high school--Hiegert at Notre Dame and Davila at Reseda.

“He was hard-nosed and tough as nails,” Davila said. “He wouldn’t give you an inch. . . . As a teammate, he was loyal and a good friend, just like he is now.”

Davila said he was taken aback by Hiegert’s dismissal.

“I was really shocked, to be honest,” he said. “Bob is a good man. Everything he has done has been with the idea to make Northridge a better place. . . . In my mind, he’s Mr. Northridge.”

That sentiment was echoed by Pete Cassidy, another of Hiegert’s college teammates. The Northridge men’s basketball coach said he learned about Hiegert’s ouster when he was picked up at the airport Tuesday after returning from a recruiting trip.

“I was surprised, to say the least,” Cassidy said. “If Tommy Lasorda bleeds Dodger blue, then Bob Hiegert bleeds Matador red. He has been tremendously committed to the school.”

Joe Buttitta, who has known Hiegert since they were 6 years old, said his friend has had trouble dealing with the administration’s decision. Buttitta and Hiegert played baseball together for the Matadors.

“I talked to him [Monday] night and he’s had the wind completely taken out of his sails,” Buttitta said. “That’s out of character for him. If you knew Bob Hiegert when he was a player, the plays he loved the most were breaking up a double play, and turning third and heading for home when the catcher had the ball. He’s a tough son of gun.”

Buttitta, a golf pro at Westlake Golf Course and TV-radio sports broadcaster, said he is bitter about the action taken against Hiegert by the Northridge administration, calling it “extremely unfair.”

“The administration is not athletic-minded at all,” said Buttitta, who has announced Northridge sporting events on radio intermittently since 1975. “They have decided that somebody has got to go, and it’s going to be Bob Hiegert. He’s a scapegoat.”

Buttitta said he considered starting a campaign to have Northridge’s baseball field named after Hiegert, a plan he acknowledged will have to be scrapped knowing the apparent rift that has developed between Hiegert and Ron Kopita, the school’s vice president for student affairs.

As Northridge baseball coach, Hiegert compiled a 609-411-9 record and led Matador teams to two NCAA Division II titles, five World Series appearances and five West Regional championships. At the time of his induction in 1989, he was only the fourth Division II coach to gain entry to the American Baseball Coaches Assn. Hall of the Fame.

“You don’t win that many games by accident,” said Jack Mutz, baseball coach at The Master’s College. “I credit what I know in baseball to Bob Hiegert. He taught me more good baseball than anybody I have ever listened to.”

Mutz became a staunch supporter of Northridge baseball in the early 1970s, when he was president of the Northridge Little League. His son, Jack Mutz Jr., was a pitcher for the Matadors in the late 1970s.

“He’s the kind of guy you want your son playing for,” Mutz said of Hiegert. “He personifies honesty and integrity.”

Like many of Hiegert’s friends, Mutz said he was shocked by Northridge’s decision to change athletic directors.

“Why would this happen to someone with all those achievements?” Mutz asked. “Nobody is more committed to Cal State Northridge than Bob Hiegert. He wants that thing to succeed more than anyone else.”

A Northridge coach who requested anonymity put it this way: “Even if you have to make that change, the guy should be walking out with everybody patting him on the back.

“Instead, he’s walking out the back door with sunglasses on.”

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A College Life

Bob Hiegert has been associated with Cal State Northridge for most of his adult life.

He attended what was then known as San Fernando Valley State, earning his bachelor’s degree and playing for the school’s baseball team. After graduating, he spent two years in the California Angels’ minor-league system, returning to Northridge as an assistant baseball coach in 1965.

He became head baseball coach in 1966, the same year he finished work on his master’s degree. A look at his years at Northridge:

Student, Baseball Player

* A four-year letterman with a career batting average of .305, he batted a career-best .386 as a freshman. Top season was when he batted .336 as a senior, leading the team with 52 hits and nine doubles.

* San Fernando Valley State’s Athlete of the Year, 1963.

* Signed with the Angels as a free agent after completing his eligibility at Northridge.

Baseball Coach

* Hiegert was an assistant coach under Stan Charnofsky in 1965. He was hired as head coach in 1966, a post he held for the next 18 years. As head coach, Hiegert had a record of 609 wins, 419 losses and 9 ties. His teams won six California Collegiate Athletic Assn. championships, five NCAA West Regional titles and two NCAA Division II national championships. Northridge won national titles in 1970 (with a 41-21 record) and 1984 (46-21).

* He was West Regional Coach of the Year five times, CCAA Coach of the Year six times, and NCAA Division II Coach of the Year in 1984.

* After Northridge’s 1984 championship, Hiegert retired from coaching to concentrate on his duties as athletic director. In 1989, Hiegert was inducted to the American Baseball Coaches Assn. Hall of Fame.

Athletic Director

* Northridge won 25 Division II national championships and 49 conference titles after Hiegert became athletic director in 1978. Under his direction, Northridge was elevated to the highest competition level in college sports, NCAA Division I, in the fall of 1990. In its first five seasons at the Division I level, Northridge teams won 935 competitions against 741 losses and 10 ties. Two Northridge teams played for Division I national championships: The men’s volleyball team in 1993, and the women’s softball team in 1994.