THE COLLEGES / FERNANDO DOMINGUEZ : Sellout for Valley-Pierce Is Fenwick’s Great Notion

As if putting together top-drawer football teams at Valley College isn’t enough, now Jim Fenwick is turning promoter.

Not in the nauseating Don King style, but in a much more palatable way.

Fenwick, in his fifth season as head coach of the Monarchs, wants to see people pack the school stadium for one game this season. He wants to see them fill the place like no other crowd has done at a football game in the history of the San Fernando Valley.

He wants to stuff 10,000 folks into the stands at Monarch Stadium for Valley’s Western State Conference interdivisional game against Pierce on Oct. 14.

“We’d like to make it a big event,” Fenwick says. “We’d like to get a lot of our students and the community involved.”

There, of course, lies the monumental challenge.

Those familiar with junior college football in the Los Angeles area know that teams don’t draw remotely close to that even for a bowl game. There are far too many other things to do on Saturday nights and apathy, particularly from students, is a major factor.

Any junior college team that averages 1,000 fans is doing well and those with larger crowds are extremely fortunate. The one constant exception where the conference is concerned is Bakersfield, a school that benefits from its location--there isn’t another college with a football program in the vicinity--and rich tradition.

It’s not uncommon for the perennially powerful Renegades to pull 8,000 or more people for a game at expansive Memorial Stadium. They have drawn as many 18,000 several times, including 21,035 for a game against Sequoias in 1976 and 20,227 for a game against Taft in 1989.

Even at its zenith of popularity, Valley never attracted crowds like that. The largest home crowd for the Monarchs was 6,804 in a 27-17 loss to Bakersfield in 1969. Valley has finished with records of 9-2 and 10-1 the past two seasons and won consecutive bowl games, but the Monarchs play in front of small crowds.

Fenwick wants to change that. Even if it’s just for one night.

“We’d like to bring extra bleachers,” Fenwick said about the Pierce game, which will be Valley’s homecoming. “We are trying to get some corporate sponsorship. We’d like to have raffles throughout the game and give away prizes. . . . I’d like to get some community leaders involved.”

The 10,000 target number might be a record for a game in the Valley, but nobody knows for sure. Some maintain they saw that many people at high school games at Birmingham High in the 1960s but those figures would be estimates. The closest to an official count for a game in the Valley might be the 8,200 who showed up at Pierce on June 15, 1985, for a game between the Los Angeles Express and the Arizona Outlaws in the old United States Football League.

Whether the Monarchs can hit five digits or get near it is debatable. The idea of throngs suddenly rushing to Valley for a football game is essentially wishful thinking. But it would be marvelous to see.

To generate that kind of interest would be a shot in the arm for the Valley and Pierce programs. It also would give junior college football in the area a much-needed boost and it would give people an opportunity to watch some outstanding players in action, many of whom will be stepping up to Division I programs next year.

And the potential for a great game is there. Two years ago, in the most-recent meeting between the schools, Valley won, 27-23, scoring the winning touchdown with little more than two minutes to play. This season, both teams are projected to be strong and undoubtedly will be sparked by the longtime rivalry.

If nothing else, it might be a chance for people to be part of history.