SIDELINES : At Calabasas, Basketball Success Comes With Strings Attached

The hottest fashion accessory around Calabasas girls’ basketball practices these days are red and white shoelaces with “I Love Basketball” printed on them.

Coyote Coach Steve Spadaro ordered the eye-catching strings out of a catalog, and awards them to players who meet their individual performance goals in each game.

So far, senior guard Jamie Apody and junior forward Alyssa Love lead in laces with three pairs each. Three other players have also earned them.

“I had no idea they’d be this popular but the girls really want them,” Spadaro said. “If they earn 10 pairs they get a special surprise but I haven’t decided what that will be.”

Shoes?

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Full speed ahead: If construction continues at its current pace, the new track and field complex at Cal State Northridge should be completed between Feb. 15 and Feb. 22, according to Matador Coach Don Strametz.

No meets were held at Northridge last year because of the track’s dilapidated condition. The new facility will include a nine-lane, all-weather, 400-meter track, four long/triple jump pits, two discus rings, a shotput ring, hammer cage and pole vault pit. The north end of the infield, a Tartan surface, will accommodate two high jump pits and the javelin runway.

The Northridge-Alemany Relays high school meet March 9 is expected to be the first competition at the new facility, followed by the Northridge Invitational college meet March 23.

Northridge also will play host to the American West Conference championships May 15-18.

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Who’s up for two on two?: St. Bonaventure boys’ basketball Coach Marc Groff doesn’t know what to do with all the players at practice these days.

The Seraphs began preseason practice with a shell of a team because eight of their 13 players were members of the football team, which was involved in the Southern Section playoffs.

Then, just as football season ended, flu season began. Groff had to call off two practices because so few players were available. “We played two on two for two weeks,” Groff said with a laugh. “We had to combine the varsity and junior varsity practices because that way we at least had 11 players to work with.”

Family ties: In 24-plus years of coaching basketball at Cal State Northridge, Pete Cassidy has seen just about everything, except what he’ll see Saturday night: one of his former players coaching against him.

Colorado-Colorado Springs, the Matadors’ opponent, is coached by Mark Felix, who played at Northridge in the late 1970s and assisted under Cassidy from 1983-86. Although Cassidy is looking forward to seeing Felix, he’s not looking forward to trying to beat him.

“It will be hard,” he said. “He’s like a son to me. . . . He’s a very special person to me.”

Quotebook

“We’d be a lot better team if the government got back to work.”

--Cal State Northridge volleyball Coach John Price, on the status of two foreign players waiting for U.S. visas so they can join the team.

“He looks like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

--Cal State Northridge basketball Coach Pete Cassidy, on center Tom Samson, who had a cold.

By the Numbers

The Master’s College center Leo Gorauskas shot 75% from the field (33 of 44) in the five games before Thursday night’s contest against Arizona Bible.

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Contributing: Jeff Fletcher, Irene Garcia, John Ortega, Tris Wykes.