Caretaker Role : Gordon, 27, Wears Mantle of Responsibility as Father, Sweeper on CSUN Soccer Team

Chuck Gordon learned about hard work and responsibility while working with his hands. But it’s in a game played with the feet that he puts those qualities on public display.

Gordon, a 27-year-old former auto mechanic, is the top defender on the Cal State Northridge men’s soccer team.

A man among, if not boys, at least notably younger men, Gordon already had played soccer for four years when the youngest of his Matador teammates were born in 1978.

“I call him Uncle Chuck,” said Matador freshman forward Michael Preis, 18. “He’s had experiences we haven’t even begun to have.”

Such as drag-racing while in high school. Working first as a full-time mechanic and then part time while attending college. Raising his daughter, Ashley Gordon, now 6.

“Playing soccer is a privilege for Chuck and he’s had to do it without a full [scholarship],” said Northridge Coach Marwan Ass’ad, who divides his meager scholarship money among numerous players.

“Any fool can do it with a full ride but Chuck’s had to scrape by. Nobody gives him anything and I admire him for that.”

Only Gordon has played for Ass’ad in each of the last three seasons. Sixty-two other players have appeared on Matador rosters in that span, during which the team has not made the playoffs.

A deluge of talented players has flowed into and out of Northridge during Gordon’s career, lost to graduation, indifference or bad grades.

And just as it appears that this year’s 15 freshmen will make a lasting impression, Gordon must move on.

“It’s sad that my college soccer is almost over,” said Gordon, whose skills belie his physical play. “But it helped me get a degree and it fulfilled my desire to play at a high level. I’m better off in life because of it.”

Not that he began at rock bottom, but Gordon has climbed a long way.

A 1987 graduate of Chatsworth High, where he was a standout soccer forward, Gordon dropped out of his first semester at Pierce College. He went to work full time for his father, Charles Sr., who ran an automotive repair shop in the Valley for 23 years before moving to Palmdale in 1988.

A fixture around the bays at Gordon’s Transmission from the age of five, Chuck had worked there as a teenager to earn his first car, a 1968 Chevelle that he and his father drag-raced on the weekends.

When Chuck returned from Pierce, Charles Gordon welcomed his son’s labor. He also wondered about Chuck’s future plans but supported his decision.

“There’s nothing wrong with hard work and I knew Chuck wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of his goals,” said Charles, an automotive technology teacher at Rosamond High and the Highland High boys’ junior varsity soccer coach.

A vague desire to return to college took on sharper focus for Gordon when Ashley was born in April 1990.

“I had to provide for somebody besides myself and it made me realize, if I went back to school things would be better for me and my daughter,” Gordon said.

The first stop was Antelope Valley College. In the absence of soccer, Gordon played football for the first time, starting as a strong safety and kicker for the Marauders during the 1992 and 1993 seasons.

But despite his success in shoulder pads, Gordon longed for soccer and, after enrolling at Northridge in the winter of 1994, became a walk-on.

Of course, Gordon still looked like a football player, carrying a top-heavy 220 pounds on his 5-foot-10 frame.

Dieting and constant running shrank Gordon to 190 pounds and he has played this season at 180.

Despite his bulk and a switch to sweeper, the defensive position closest to the goalkeeper, Gordon made an immediate impact.

“He surprised us because he didn’t look good, he looked like a bully,” Ass’ad said. “But he would do things with the ball that our other guys couldn’t do. The second year I held him to a higher standard and he developed composure.”

Northridge was 7-9-2 in 1994, the first losing season in 12 under Ass’ad. In 1995, the Matadors started 2-4-1 before scrambling to finish 9-8-2.

Gordon’s frustration reached its peak during the recent off-season when four talented underclassmen left the program and several others became academically ineligible.

“I get upset because they’re being given a great opportunity here,” said Gordon, who has graduated with a degree in kinesiology and is working toward his teaching credential.

“I feel they should take advantage of it and realize that soccer is important and school is just as important if not more.”

With its influx of talented freshmen, Northridge (4-8-2) has had talent to match most of its opponents this season.

But nowhere has the team’s youth showed more than in its defensive third of the field. There, Gordon’s shouted instructions can go unheard as his teammates often struggle to learn Ass’ad’s system.

“You have to be aggressive, anticipate correctly and always support each other,” Gordon said. “We’re 100% better than at the start but getting to know how one another plays is a huge part of the game and it’s taken time.”

Gordon makes plenty of time for his daughter, who wandered amid stretching Matadors on the field before last week’s game against Cal State Fullerton.

Gordon and Ashley’s mother separated in 1993. Their daughter spends three or four days a week with each parent; either with Gordon in Canoga Park or in Canyon Country with her mother.

“We both give her a lot of attention,” Gordon said. “She goes everywhere when she’s with me; games, practices, school.”

Gordon recently signed Ashley up for an American Youth Soccer Organization team, the Tiny Toons, which played an exhibition during halftime of a Northridge game last month.

“I have to make an adjustment each day,” Gordon said. “On the field you can be an animal and all amped up. But as a father you have to try and be logical and calm about everything.

“I’ve had a lot of responsibility but struggling makes you realize what’s important.”