Official Has High Hopes for Title Game

The state championship football game Saturday at Cal State Fullerton was well-enough received that state commissioner Joanne Fortunato hopes it will continue.

The future of the game, where it will be played and the playoff system will be major topics when the executive council of the state’s Commission on Athletics meets in January. The date and site of the meeting haven’t been established.

“I hope the board will find that it was a valuable experience,” Fortunato said. Mt. San Antonio scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter and hung on to beat City College of San Francisco, 38-35.

The game drew an announced crowd of 3,351, but Fortunato said: “You always want to see more. It would have been great if 12,000 people were there.”

Better attendance is just one improvement Fortunato would like to make and is looking forward to having almost a year to plan the game.

This year’s game wasn’t approved until July and Blue Diamond Growers, the title sponsor, didn’t get involved until late October.

Fortunato wouldn’t say how much Blue Diamond paid, but several sources put the figure at about $10,000.

Blue Diamond hasn’t decided about next season, but increasing sponsorship is one of the major projects Fortunato wants her office to tackle, assuming the game is approved. The state entertained several potential sponsors Saturday at the game.

Another goal is to get the game on television; Fortunato said there wasn’t enough time to do that this year.

The day had its share of problems, mostly minor ones.

Riverside College’s band preformed at halftime but was forced to do a shortened version of its show because stadium management wouldn’t let the band bring some large sections of scaffolding onto the field.

The band members had the scaffolding in position and didn’t find out they wouldn’t be able to use it until they started to move it with three minutes left in the first half.

This decision was made in order to help save the playing surface because there was a high school game Saturday night at Fullerton.