CSUN Sports

I am amazed at the outcry over the termination of men’s baseball, volleyball, soccer and swimming (4 Men’s Sports Dropped From CSUN Lineup,” June 12). Over the past 20 years, I have watched the CSUN athletic program struggle against insurmountable odds. There has been little public support, total apathy on the part of the student population and far too frequent bashing by the local media. If the Valley public really cared about the type of sports CSUN ought to be fielding, there would be much better attendance at CSUN sporting events and donations would be pouring in. If the student population cared about their school’s reputation, they would have happily passed the referendum the first time it was put on the ballot. If the media really cared, they would provide better coverage of events at Northridge and not relegate news regarding CSUN sports to some obscure blip in the back pages. The fact is that CSUN’s choices were limited by the realities of its budget and the community it serves.

In the face of these seemingly impossible odds, Athletic Director Paul Bubb and Vice President for Student Affairs Ron Kopita have courageously tried to chart a course for CSUN athletics. They have found a home for CSUN in the Big Sky Conference that has breathed new life into the program and brought CSUN onto the national playing field. Football may be a big strain on a strapped program like CSUN’s, but it is by far the best sport to establish a unique identity for CSUN in the Southland and provide it with a chance for national recognition.

I believe that the difficult decision by Bubb and Kopita to slash these programs to comply with gender equity deserves our applause. It shows leadership and courage on their part to swallow this bitter pill. This is exactly what CSUN needed to start on the road to having a strong and sustainable athletics program.

PAUL GILL

Chatsworth

Editor’s note: Since announcement of the cuts June 11, men’s soccer has been granted a one-year reprieve. Other programs may seek similar arrangements.

* Everyone’s mussing and fussing about how women have been the cause of ruin for CSUN’s men’s teams. No one’s laying the blame squarely at the feet of CSUN’s football coach who pushed for inclusion in the Big Sky Conference. You think he didn’t see the writing on the wall a few years ago? How other colleges were dumping football to save more successful sports? How soon he’d be out of a job? He convinced the college to let his team join the Big Sky Conference and now four other men’s teams are axed. And somehow this is the women’s fault?

ROSANNE WELCH

Van Nuys

* It is not difficult to understand CSUN’s predicament regarding its athletic calamity. First, the school mismanages earthquake repair funds and fails to demand employees pay back thousands of dollars in loans. Without realizing its implications fully, the university joins an athletic conference that mandates football participation. Subsequently Northridge must issue [more than 40] scholarships to a football program that draws about 4,000 spectators to a game and is a quarter-million-dollar drag on the budget.

Other universities omit football and concentrate on selected sports that enable gender equity to be met; why not Northridge? Maybe the answer lies with a fiscally irresponsible administration that also lacks farsighted planning.

WILLIAM J. SHARP

Northridge

* In its decision to expand its football and basketball programs, CSUN, and not Title IX, did a disservice to students. CSUN obviously felt that expensive men’s football and basketball programs that serve fewer students were of greater value to the school community than less expensive programs that would involve more students. Those in charge of such decisions need to go back and take a hard look at what school is for.

CAROL MAY

Los Angeles

* I’d like to take this opportunity to thank CSUN President Blenda Wilson, as well as the California chapter of the National Organization for Women, for refusing to accept excellence at any level.

The baseball and volleyball programs at CSUN were among the best in the nation, bringing recognition and athletics to the campus, but gosh darn it, where were those female fastball pitchers at tryout time? How rude of the volleyball and baseball staff to accept the best players into their programs without first thinking of gender equity.

Now with the cancellation of those sports programs at CSUN, I feel safe that the intercollegiate goal of mediocrity at all costs can be achieved.

MIKE MacDONALD

North Hills

* The crybabies who are whining over the loss of their beloved male sports teams at CSUN give not a thought to the women who have been denied the opportunity to compete since the inception of these taxpayer-subsidized athletic programs.

We still apparently don’t get it. Women for too long have been denied equal access and opportunity and they haven’t cried. Their need in this area was and is considered of not great importance. But when the shoe is on the other foot, the whining and screaming result in so much pandemonium that it makes for front-page headlines.

Does this unseemly uproar, shock and dismay over obedience to a law that mandates equality not expose the inherent bigotry still rampant?

If the need for athletics in school is an imperative, then the obvious answer is to raise the money so that both sexes can enjoy becoming consummate models, with each reaching their fullest potential.

ARLINE MATHEWS

Chatsworth

* Where are the donors? Even CSUN students have usually opted to vote down fee increases for sports. When the academic segment of the university needs extra funds, we seek them. Currently about $8 million per year in extramural funding has been obtained by the academic faculty to support their programs. In science this has helped lead to our listing as No. 1 in the nation in a recent National Science Foundation study on numbers of graduates who go on for doctoral degrees from comprehensive universities.

The CSUN administration took the only possible step at this point that would not lead to loss of funds from academic programs. The sports programs need million-dollar-per-year donors. These programs could be reinstated if the donors materialize. We need to actively look for outside support for athletics. Otherwise, these cuts may be the writing on the wall even for football.

STEVEN B. OPPENHEIMER

CSUN Center for Cancer and

Developmental Biology

Northridge

* It is difficult to believe that CSUN would eliminate such a major sport as baseball. CSUN and the Valley community would be greatly benefited with the removal or resignation of Kopita, a less than mediocre administrator, and Wilson, the disappointing president.

MARVIN GROSS

Northridge

* The recently fulfilled gender-equity regulations were a long time in coming. Now finally, there is hope for the rest of us to be equally represented in the athletic department. Next year I am looking forward to seeing our previously winning sports team represented by their enrolled share of Hispanics, African Americans, Asians, Malaysians, Pacific Islanders, dyslexics, elderly, obese and, of course, the physically challenged. It is a sad day when we enforce the equality of one group at the expense of another.

BARRY K. WOODS

West Hills

* The elimination of four men’s sporting programs at CSUN is a perfect example of the principle of unintended consequences in legislation. Linda Joplin, the NOW official who led the 1993 lawsuit, was quoted as saying, “This is certainly not what we had in mind.” When are we going to learn that almost every piece of legislation has similar, if less visible, unintended consequences?

JEFFREY L. SUTHERLAND

Palmdale

* With one stroke of her pen, President Wilson has done something to CSUN’s baseball program that no opposing pitcher could do. She threw a permanent perfect game.

STUART D. JAEGER

West Hills