ANALYSIS : Big Sky Is Cloudy for Coaches at Northridge : Some sports are placed in jeopardy by conference affiliation that requires Matadors to increase football scholarships.

The Big Sky Conference has agreed to take Cal State Northridge’s once-orphaned athletic program under its umbrella.

But that doesn’t mean everyone has found shelter.

Truth be told, The Big Sky might just fall on a Northridge team or two.

Some of the school’s strongest and most popular programs are not among the 13 core sports sponsored by the conference.

Softball, baseball, men’s volleyball, both soccer programs and both swimming and diving teams were unaccounted for Tuesday when the school and conference made a joint announcement that Northridge would begin Big Sky affiliation next year.

Northridge needs to balance its books--from a budget standpoint and in terms of state-mandated gender-equity participation requirements.

In order to gain acceptance into the Big Sky, Northridge promised to add women’s golf and men’s tennis, plus, more significantly, increase the number of football scholarships it offers from 20 to near 63, the NCAA Division I-AA limit.

Northridge won’t be adding without subtracting.

School officials, including school president Blenda J. Wilson, have said that a “hard look” will be given to existing Northridge programs which the Big Sky does not offer.

“[Joining the Big Sky] is great for our basketball and football and track teams,” said Marwan Ass’ad, coach of Northridge’s locally popular men’s soccer team. “It suits those sports and nothing else.”

Although its budget is similar to other Big Sky schools, Northridge would, by existing plans, be offering 21 sports by the fall of 1997. The other schools have between 14 and 17.

A task force is being organized to find Northridge’s best plan of attack. Athletic Director Paul Bubb said he hopes to have a final report by the end of next month.

In the meantime, the future of several sports is on hold.

Publicly, Northridge coaches are presenting a united and optimistic front.

“Being in the Big Sky is great for the athletic department,” Northridge baseball Coach Mike Batesole said. “It opens up a lot of doors for the program in the future.”

Then again, a future for baseball--and several other sports--isn’t necessarily guaranteed.

Northridge offers 10 full scholarships for baseball which, if redirected, would be a significant stride toward upgrading football.

Batesole said Bubb has assured him that baseball is safe, even though the Matadors would have to compete without conference affiliation.

Baseball was first to make a big impact when Northridge made the move to Division I in 1991. The Matadors, under former Coach Bill Kernen, came within three outs of advancing to the College World Series in their first season.

Over the past five years, the men’s volleyball team, which lost the 1993 NCAA championship match to UCLA, has been an even-more-consistent winner.

Volleyball drains very little from Northridge’s scholarship budget because the Matadors offer the equivalent of only 2.75 scholarships.

The same can be said for the swimming and soccer programs.

“If we drop five sports we don’t even get 10% of what we need [to fund the increase for football],” swimming Coach Barry Schreifels said.

Of the sports not taken in by the Big Sky, softball is probably the safest, even though the Western Athletic Conference recently ousted Northridge as an affiliate member.

The Matadors have won or shared the past three consecutive WAC championships and advanced to the NCAA title game in 1994.

“Softball is still a high-priority sport here,” Coach Janet Sherman said.

Since gender equity mandates that overall men’s and women’s scholarship funding be comparable, dropping softball wouldn’t make sense in the overall scheme of things, several coaches said.

“There’s no way that softball is going to be cut,” volleyball Coach John Price said.

Rather than eliminating sports, Bubb, the athletic director, said some programs might be scaled back.

The issue seems to be a numbers game. How they add up will determine the fate of six sports.

Price, for one, would prefer to see some belt-tightening before the hatchet comes out.

Keeping all the programs, he said, “is a more-difficult route. But a possible route.”