Planned CSUN Stadium a Softball Fan’s Dream

Janet Sherman wore the blissed-out expression of a lottery winner.

Grinning from ear to ear, the Cal State Northridge softball coach stood beside the model of a softball stadium that would rival any in the nation: seating for 2,700, lights, a concourse with concession stands and a clubhouse.

The works.

“This takes any other stadium I’ve ever seen to another level,” Sherman said.

If plans described at a news conference Thursday at City Hall come to pass, the Matadors will play their home games in the on-campus facility beginning with the 1999 season.

Steven Soboroff, president of the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Commission and the driving force behind the project, said that youth baseball and softball tournaments also will be held at the stadium, which will have the look of an old-time baseball park.

“This will be a stadium that takes you back 100 years,” Soboroff said. “It will be a special place for the children of the Valley to play.”

The stadium will be owned and operated by the university in accordance with an operating agreement with a stadium foundation. “It will be a publicly owned stadium,” Soboroff said. “Those are details to be ironed out. The actual ownership we haven’t thought through.”

Funding has not been secured. The design and architectural plans, construction estimates and geotechnical services were donated, said Soboroff, who also is Mayor Richard Riordan’s point man in building the proposed $200 million downtown arena.

Soboroff said he is negotiating with two “strong San Fernando Valley corporate players” to pay the stadium’s $1.75 million construction price in exchange for the right to attach their names to it.

“These are serious parties, but if that money doesn’t materialize, we will go to $50,000 to $100,000 contributions,” he said. “I don’t anticipate a problem. There is an insatiable appetite for this kind of pride project to help the children of the city.”

The stadium is planned for the site of the current Northridge softball field, north of Plummer Street and west of Zelzah Avenue. It would give Northridge one of the finest softball facilities in the nation and provide Sherman, whose CSUN team was ranked No. 14 last season, with a tremendous recruiting tool.

The facility also would stand as a reminder of Northridge’s decision in June to cut four men’s sports--baseball, soccer, swimming and golf. Soboroff came up with the idea for the stadium after talking to community members looking for ways to keep the Matador baseball program alive. He shifted to the softball project when baseball was eliminated.

The four men’s sports were later given a one-year reprieve, but during that year baseball games will continue to be played at Matador Field, ranked the worst in Division I by Baseball America magazine. Northridge Athletic Director Paul Bubb said he hopes some of the enthusiasm for the softball stadium spills over to the adjacent baseball field.

“If we are able to continue the momentum to build a sister site with the same themes, that would be wonderful,” Bubb said.