Pierce Plan for Hiring Coach Is Off-Center

So Pierce College plans to hire an off-campus football coach to replace Bill Norton, who resigned last week.

That fiscal limitation probably won’t allow Bob Lyons, the school’s athletic director, to hire a candidate with solid credentials.

“I think it’s almost impossible to run a quality [football] program . . . if you’re just a part-timer,” said one athletic director who asked for anonymity. “You won’t have the stability you need.”

In that respect, nothing much would change for the Brahmas, who were 1-29 the last three seasons and snapped a 31-game losing streak last year.

During his eight seasons with the Brahmas, Norton often complained about lack of funding and support from the school’s administration. He was close to quitting several times before.

Now Lyons is left to retool the Brahmas without much to offer a coach, since Norton is keeping his teaching position at Pierce. And probably his sanity.

But several football people in the region agree Pierce’s once-proud program can’t be rebuilt adequately with a walk-on coach.

“It’s [an] all-consuming [job], it’s nonstop,” said another athletic director. “There are incredible academic problems [with players] and other problems day in and day out. Who’s going to deal with that?”

Some apparently believe they can. Lyons said several people have applied for the walk-on position, including Doug Woodlief, a former linebacker with the Los Angeles Rams who coached at Bell-Jeff High and now is in real estate.

The measly $5,000 stipend--more, if there’s an opportunity to teach some classes--seemingly is not a deterrent and neither are the likely headaches.

Unless Lyons can find a qualified coach with the financial means and the time flexibility to take over the program, the feeling among some of his counterparts is that Pierce won’t soon rise even to mediocrity.

“Their goal is to at least make themselves competitive and I don’t think they can do it that way,” said one observer.

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Trivia time: Who is the only Pierce coach with a full-time teaching position?

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The men are gladly packing their bags. The women are preparing to be inhospitable hosts.

Sounds like relationship trouble, but actually it’s the tangled state of the Cal State Northridge basketball teams.

Along with the state of Montana.

Although the Big Sky Conference season is in its early stages, this is a defining weekend for the Matador men’s and women’s teams.

The Northridge men visit Montana State (7-7, 1-2 in the Big Sky) on Friday and Montana (8-6, 1-2) on Sunday. They will try to purge the memory of back-to-back home losses that left them with a 1-3 conference record.

“We need to go on the road right now,” said Derrick Higgins, a senior guard. “We’ve done some of our best work on the road. At home, we’re always listening for someone in the stands. Maybe it’ll be good to be our own cheerleaders.”

Hopefully they will have something to cheer about. Northridge (9-7 overall) needs at least one victory in Montana to avoid falling two games out of sixth place in the nine-team conference.

The top six teams qualify for the conference tournament at the conclusion of the regular season.

“It’s too early to think about finishing sixth,” Coach Bobby Braswell said. “We have a lot of basketball to play and our sights are set a lot higher than sixth.”

The Northridge women host Montana State tonight and Montana on Saturday. They will try to extend the momentum built with five victories in six games, including three of four in the Big Sky and two in a row on the road.

Montana (5-8, 1-2) is vulnerable after winning the last five Big Sky titles. Montana State (9-4, 3-0) joins Northridge (8-5, 2-1) as contenders to steal the crown.

The Matadors are coming off consecutive road victories over Portland State and Eastern Washington after starting the trip with an overtime loss against Idaho State.

“Our goal was to win two of those three and we did it the hard way,” Coach Frozena Jerro said. “We bounced back from a tough loss real well.

“These next two home games are key. The road to this championship has always gone through Montana. And Montana State is unbeaten in conference.”

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Ventura, without a men’s basketball program since the 1996-97 season, hopes to have a coach in place by April and a team on the court next season.

Dick James, the school’s athletic director, said the position will be posted until March 11.

“Over the past year, I’ve received 19 inquiries [about the position],” James said. “We want to get back in the business of having a basketball team.”

The school disbanded the program, one of the state’s perennial powerhouses, in the acrimonious aftermath of the firing of Coach Virgil Watson in March 1997.

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Trivia answer: Bob Lofrano, who’s about to start his 10th baseball season with the Brahmas.

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Who’s on Oprah this week? What’s Rosie up to? Which cretins are Judge Mills Lane presiding over?

John Cicuto, Glendale football coach, can tell you.

Cicuto is recuperating at home from recent knee surgery for an old football injury and he’s climbing the walls--crutches and all.

“They went in and cleaned [the knee] out,” Cicuto said. “They messed around with the bone.

“All I can do is watch the stupid [TV] shows. My big outing is to go to the market when my wife drives me there.”

Staff writers Fernando Dominguez, Steve Henson and Eric Sondheimer contributed to this notebook.