Wilson Has No Comment but Readers Have Plenty to Say

Blenda “I have no comment” Wilson allows soccer one more year if it can fund itself? Swimming may get the same opportunity? Baseball and volleyball have terminated their schedules, helped their athletes sign on with other schools, turned off the lights and locked the door.

What is wrong with this picture? If a one-year notice was appropriate, shouldn’t Blenda “go find yourself someplace else to play” Wilson have given the coaches that option when they were told their programs were terminated? Can you hear the roar of the football cheers echoing through the valley, “Beat Montana State?”

GART PRICE

Encino

*

Cal State Northridge President Blenda J. Wilson is quoted, in your paper and others, that she wants to emphasize “the strategic involvement with the local community and the university.” Nothing could be further from the truth. The local community over the past three to four years has been virtually shut out from her office and the university in general.

For several years an organization that I represent attempted to use facilities at the North Campus complex all without success. These events would be a guaranteed $50,000 per event to Northridge. While in the grand scheme of things that figure may not completely overcome the shortfall, it certainly is 1/16th, and repeated, those 1/16ths add up.

No explanation was ever given as to why we were turned down, nor were we ever able to discuss these events beyond a “clerk” or other administrative assistant. Wilson was “unavailable” then, as it seems, now.

Failures of this type in the outside world usually lead to ousting of management and the misdirection corrected. Apparently President “Defenda” Wilson is not in touch with the outside world. However, since she is constantly “unavailable,” we may never now if that is true or not. From this vantage point it certainly appears that she is not.

TIM MAHER

Northridge

*

Paul Bubb and Ron Kopita have hijacked Cal State Northridge’s broad-based, community-supported athletic program. While matters of consequence distracted us, these trusted administrators ripped the heart out of a great university. And now, everyone in the Valley knows the administration can not be trusted.

When a prestigious institution like Northridge runs so far afoul of the reasonable expectations of the community, we have to search for an answer. No, it is not an easy answer. Perhaps, in this town, we would call it the “usual suspects”--them and us.

A complacent community takes a great university in its midst for granted. Busy moms and dads and students and athletes all hurry through the day. The economy is going from boom to bust. Money is getting tight; time is getting even tighter. The great university and its leaders are changing.

The home-grown, old guard is out. As always, Southern California attracts young, talented and aggressive newcomers to take their place. A more diverse community is developing inside and outside the walls of the great university. Then, something goes wrong. Under the stress of divergent interests, a shrinking economy, changing values, a lowering of standards, the great university loses its sense of continuity.

The institution is without a course. No one seems to know where the institution came from or where it should be going. And unfortunately, its supporters’ and its community’s attention is diverted by a great natural disaster.

And one morning, the community wakes up, reads its daily newspaper, and finally realizes that its great university has been hijacked. So, thanks Paul Bubb and Ron Kopita. Maybe we needed that. How could we have failed our duty to protect our great university from the vandals in our midst?

Blenda J. Wilson, Northridge President, you now have the Valley’s undivided attention. Tell us. What is your agenda?

NORMAN M. PATE

Northridge

*

I can’t believe that anybody in our state education system thinks they are answerable to no one. When Northridge canceled men’s baseball and men’s volleyball and two other men’s sports, they at worst case ruined many young men’s college sports careers, at best they wasted half of many sports careers.

The Valley is not a hotbed of Little League football, nor is it a hotbed of American Legion football. This is baseball country.

The administration did not go to the community and ask for input to try to solve the problem and they did not go to the business sector and ask for help.

Now, we have an assistant to the mayor and a pro sports team that want to build a $1.5 to $3 million-dollar multipurpose baseball/softball stadium and guess what? We don’t have a baseball team anymore.

Now, we are in the Big Sky conference and we have to spend extra money to travel longer distances to play other teams in the conference. Almost a $1 million-dollar budget for football. The administration says that it will have 12, 13 maybe 15,000 fans at the stadium for football games. Are we natural rivals of Montana or Montana State.? Give me a break.

Please, people of the Valley, do not let this kind of high-handed, out of touch with reality, education administration go unnoticed. They conned their own students! I hope we all refuse to support Cal State Northridge in any fashion until they get in touch with the region and reality. This is chicanery at the highest level.

JOE SKARDA

Granada Hills

* NORTHRIDGE CUTS: Letters regarding Cal State Northridge athletics also appear today on C3. Additional letters will be published Sunday in the Metro Section.