Serious Fun : CSUN Professor Makes Work Out of Play at Castaic Aquatic Program

On these hot summer days, it’s easy to envy a guy like John Van Arsdale.

In his work uniform--a straw hat, surfing T-shirt, blue shorts and flip-flops--the Cal State Northridge professor heads to work. Not off to some lecture hall or cubbyhole of an office on the CSUN campus, mind you, but a modestly furnished, air-conditioned trailer at the edge of lower Castaic Lake.

Van Arsdale, 51, is a professor of leisure studies and recreation, a job that makes work of play.

As part of his responsibilities, he is in charge of the CSUN Aquatic Center at Castaic Lake, running programs that train young mariners in the ways of the water.

For 20 years, Van Arsdale, along with his youthful staff members, has taught scores of people the fine points of sailing, windsurfing, kayaking, water skiing, jet skiing, as well as boating safety and education.

Of the 7,500 who enroll in the center’s programs each year, however, only about 8% are CSUN students who receive college credit.

The CSUN college courses, which include sailing and water skiing and earn students credit through the university’s leisure studies program, are separately organized from programs to teach nonstudents.

For those individuals who do not want credit, there are other subjects to choose from as well as state boating safety certification courses. The center serves as a regional Boating Safety Center in cooperation with the state Department of Boating and Waterways.

Campers, the disabled, and troubled youths use the facility. Even Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies, Los Angeles Fire Department personnel and county lifeguards have attended to learn proper etiquette on personal watercraft, such as jet skis.

The watercraft--along with water skis, boats, life jackets and other equipment--come to the center through donations and grants. The center is self-supporting through grants, volunteer work and community donations, and the administrators “don’t take a dime of taxpayer money for it,” Van Arsdale said.

It is a cooperative effort among the California Department of Boating and Waterways, Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation and the Los Angeles Police Department.

That cooperation, officials say, was one of the primary reasons Camp Nautique won the 1996 National Safe Boating Council Youth Program of Excellence Award and a $2,500 grant from boating manufacturer Boston Whaler.

Although there were “a couple dozen really good programs,” said Elaine Dickinson, who serves on the board of the National Safe Boating Council, “we picked them for our award because they could serve as a national model.”

On a sweltering day recently, campers from Sierra Canyon Camp in Chatsworth and Cottontail Ranch in Malibu Canyon--among the many children’s camps that use the facility--waited by the shore to go tubing.

“It’s fun wiping out,” said 13-year-old Paul Emmer of Chatsworth. It’s “a good summer experience,” said Jeff Goldstein, 14, also of Chatsworth.

“This and the beach” are the most popular programs at his camp, said Raliegh Anderson, 15, from Santa Barbara.

Scott Juceaun, 25, a Sierra Canyon Camp counselor who has been coming to Castaic Lake since he was a preschooler, described the Aquatic Center as “a wonderful place to bring kids.”

Juceaun also has worked at the center through the Camp Nautique program for youths 9 to 15 in trouble with the law or regarded as at risk to become delinquents. Children are referred to Camp Nautique by the LAPD, parents, schools or the courts. The goal, Van Arsdale says, is to teach them leadership, teamwork and social skills.

Troubled youngsters come to the camp timid and shy, “having never fished before or seen a lake,” Van Arsdale said. The confidence they acquire from the skills they learn, he said, sends them away “open to new things [with] the feeling they can do anything.”

The Nautical Center is open year-round except from Dec. 15 through Feb. 1, during the CSUN winter break.