Most of the Time, Bittner Has Spelled S-u-c-c-e-s-s for Moorpark

Moorpark College football Coach Jim Bittner is a hands-on guy when it comes to his program. He’ll do anything from seeding the field at Griffin Stadium to getting shirts stenciled.

However, not all endeavors have gone smoothly for Bittner, in his 17th season as Raider head coach.

At a dinner in honor of the upcoming Western State Bowl, Bittner recalled one project gone awry.

“We had some shirts silk-screened one year the night before the team banquet,” Bittner said. “I showed them to someone at the banquet who didn’t seem very impressed. I said, ‘What’s wrong? These are nice shirts.’ Then one guy comes up to me and says, ‘Coach, Moorpark is spelled wrong.’

“We did 150 shirts like that.”

Everything was spelled correctly on the shirts Bittner had silk-screened and presented to the players and coaches at the banquet to commemorate Saturday’s game.

Bad karma: We told you here last week about how oft-injured Ruben Oronoz was finally healthy as he prepared for his senior basketball season at Cal State Northridge.

Well, it’s been a long week.

Since last Friday, Oronoz caught a mysterious one-night illness that had him breaking out in a rash, suffered a bruised left thigh against Nevada Las Vegas, and suffered a bruised right thigh on Tuesday against Fresno State.

Did we jinx him?

“Nah,” Oronoz said. “It’s just the story of my life.”

Quotebook

“I recruited him for a year and a half and Jerry Tarkanian signed him in a day and a half.”

--Cal State Northridge basketball Coach Pete Cassidy, on Fresno State guard Kendric Brooks, who lit up the Matadors for 28 points on seven-of-12 shooting Tuesday night.

“Finest High School Sports’ Booklet In The Milky Way Galaxy And Beyond.”

--Printed on the cover of the 1995 St. Bonaventure High football program.

Things to Do

The Pepperdine women’s basketball team will play host to the Malibu Classic this weekend at Firestone Fieldhouse. The Waves (1-1) play Radford (0-2) at 4 p.m. Saturday, followed at 6 by Houston (1-1) and Middle Tennessee State. The championship game will be played at 3 p.m. Sunday, preceded by the consolation game at 1.

Pepperdine plays host to Cal State Northridge at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Contributing: Fernando Dominguez, Rob Fernas, Jeff Fletcher, Tris Wykes.