They’ve Made Their Marks in Many Different Arenas, but They Have One Thing in Common: These Men and Women of Sport Figure to Be Major Players in the Year Ahead : RON KOPITA : Meet Northridge’s Most-Important Player

Ron Kopita isn’t a player or a coach, but he has everything to do with Cal State Northridge sports.

As the school’s vice president for student affairs, Kopita has the ear of the university’s president, Blenda J. Wilson, when it comes to the numerous decisions in 1996 that will shape Northridge athletics into the next century.

Kopita will be instrumental in determining the mechanics of Northridge’s move into the Big Sky Conference, which demands that the Matadors triple their football scholarships, renovate their facilities and add two sports.

Kopita, with the help of a task force’s recommendations, will determine whether Northridge can make the changes while sticking to strict gender-equity regulations and without overextending an already strapped budget.

In the next two weeks, Kopita and Wilson will scrutinize the task force report--which concluded that the goals can be accomplished without cutting any sports--and determine a path for the athletic program.

Also in January, Kopita will form a committee to begin the search for an athletic director. Bob Hiegert stepped down last summer and was replaced on an interim basis by Paul Bubb.

Kopita said he hopes to have a new athletic director by July 1. Finding the right person will be almost as much a challenge as the job itself, he said.

“We are looking for someone who can come in and help a program grow and build,” Kopita said. “A growing and developing and a sometimes struggling program needs someone with a lot of vision and energy.”

Kopita also will be involved in decisions regarding the university’s North Campus property. Among the proposals is a development that would include a new football stadium and an arena.

If those plans are realized, Northridge could become the regional centerpiece for college sports it yearns to be. If not, Northridge might be doomed to more seasons of obscurity.

With so many changes on the horizon, Kopita sees 1996 as a year of continuing transition, with more changes still to come.

“In some ways,” he said, “we are more excited about 1997.”