It Could Be Lights Out for CSUN

Cal State Northridge took the first step Monday toward dropping football, citing financial deficits and gender-equity concerns that could lead to the termination of the 40-year-old program after this season.

In a report submitted to Northridge President Jolene Koester, Athletic Director Dick Dull recommended cutting the program amid a foundering athletic department budget that spends $1.3 million a year on football and gets back only $26,000 in gate receipts.

“We simply have too many sports and not enough money,” said Dull, who forecasted a $725,000 athletic budget deficit this year. “Somewhere along the line you have to put the brakes on.

“After a thorough study all summer long and after considering several scenarios, we have indicated to the president that the only way to comply with [gender equity] and to have fiscal solvency is to no longer play football.”

Northridge, 0-3 this season, is competing as an independent since leaving the Big Sky Conference last year to join the Big West Conference in most sports. The Big West does not include football as a conference sport.

Koester said the financially strapped university will make a final decision in late November.

“We have a potentially serious situation in terms of the state budget, so we have to be realistic about what we spend and that’s why we are looking at this,” she said.

Northridge, 37-52 since moving from Division II to I-AA in 1993, would be the fifth large California school to drop football in the last 10 years. Long Beach State cut football after the 1991 season. Cal State Fullerton and UC Santa Barbara followed suit in 1992, and University of the Pacific dropped football after the 1995 season.

Third-year Coach Jeff Kearin said he was warned by Dull in August that the future of the program was in jeopardy.

“It’s certainly a possibility, but not something that has happened yet,” Kearin said. “I will fight for this program to the death and will operate always that we’ll be here next year.”

Kearin old players Monday about Dull’s recommendation. Northridge’s home opener is Saturday against Western Oregon.

Drew Amerson, a junior receiver, said he is concerned how the team will respond for the rest of the season.

“It’s like, what are we playing for?,” he said. “People aren’t going to come to games now. You don’t even know if there’s going to be a program next year.”

Amerson, who has 10 career games with at least 100 yards receiving, is among a handful of Matadors who could transfer to Division I programs if Northridge discontinues football.

Dull said players’ scholarships will be honored until they graduate.

Kearin has two years left on a contract that pays him $96,000 a year. The university can terminate his contract next June if Kearin is given six months’ notice in January, Dull said.

Administrators had been faced with the costly task of replacing North Campus Stadium, an uncomfortable, poorly lighted 7,000-seat facility scheduled to be destroyed after the season. The land will become part of the expansion of a private biotechnology center.

Northridge had reached an agreement to play home games at L.A. Pierce College in Woodland Hills next season.

Northridge had also been struggling to reach gender-equity standards. Northridge ranked at or near the bottom among 19 Cal State University schools in meeting athletic gender-equity requirements, according to a report released last year.

The California National Organization for Women sued the CSU system in 1993, alleging discrimination against women’s athletics.

Before the case went to trial, Cal-NOW and CSU reached an agreement requiring each campus to increase its percentage of women athletes as well as funding for women’s sports.

Facing similar budget and gender-equity problems in 1997, Northridge discontinued four men’s sports-baseball, soccer, volleyball and swimming-but brought them back after an outcry among alumni, players and coaches, and pledges of increased private financial support.

Former state Sen. Cathie Wright helped secure $586,000 in public education funds to restore the four sports, but private funding needed to maintain the program in its entirety has gone largely unfulfilled.

Reaction to Monday’s developments was mixed among Northridge students.

Jake Moreno, a freshman majoring in cinema, said that “every college needs to have a football team to represent it. If they stop building all these giant buildings on campus, they’d have some money left over for the football team.”

Keir Johnston, a senior majoring in art, said he wouldn’t be disappointed if the team was cut.

“By the looks of the stadium and the facilities where they play, they don’t care very much about it,” he said. “It looks like a high school stadium.”

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Times staff writers John Ortega, Zanto Peabody and Eric Sondheimer contributed to this report.