Football Alters Playing Field

NORTHRIDGE — The men’s soccer team at Cal State Northridge is budgeted for four scholarships next season, while the women’s soccer team will have 10.

But the men’s team is likely to be sacrificed--in the name of gender equity.

Go down the line with the vulnerable sports at Northridge--baseball, golf, soccer, swimming and volleyball--and each is funded below the level of the corresponding women’s sport.

In terms of equity it makes no sense, until you consider the giant that throws off the balance, like an elephant sitting at one end of a canoe.

In the case of Northridge--and many other schools that are wrestling with gender equity--the elephant is football, the sport with most players, the largest budget and no female equivalent.

Next week, Northridge will announce cuts necessary to balance the program’s budget, and meet gender-equity requirements mandated by the settlement of a lawsuit against the Cal State University system by the National Organization for Women.

Marwan Ass’ad, Northridge men’s soccer coach, is fully expecting that announcement will include the elimination of his job and his program.

“What’s happened to us is not a shock,” Ass’ad said. “I expected this five years ago, as soon as I found out about the NOW agreement.

“I knew if football stays, we’re dead.”

Eliminating football--as CSU branches at Long Beach, Fullerton and San Francisco have done in the 1990s--is not an option for Northridge. When Northridge joined the Big Sky Conference, which at the time was its only viable option, it committed not only to keeping football, but to seriously upgrading the program.

Many suggest the simplest solution to the problem is to take football out of the equation used to determine if schools comply with the NOW settlement and Title IX, a federal gender-equity statute.

“Ever since the inception of the law people have said it’s not fair because there are 90 or 100 people in the game of football and there’s not a comparable [women’s] sport,” said Northridge football Coach Jim Fenwick. “While everyone agrees to that, men and women, the women aren’t really willing to bend on that.

“In one breath, they say the spirit of the law was not to hurt men’s sports, but in reality it is.”

Marcia Greenberger, co-president of National Women’s Law Center, disagrees.

“We heard the same arguments 20 years ago,” she said. “From the very beginning, unfortunately, football coaches have been arguing that football players should be exempted. Those arguments have been rejected by Congress and the courts.

“There are schools that have been able to come in compliance with Title IX and have been able to have football programs. That’s doable.”

Efforts have been ongoing for years to try to discount football in gender-equity issues. None have been successful, and Northridge Athletic Director Paul Bubb isn’t sure that would be the right solution.

“I think that what you would have to do then, in addition to not counting football, you’d have to find a way of budgeting for football away from everything else,” Bubb said.

“Then you can say that football is self-supporting and not taking resources from other men’s or women’s programs.

“If an institution can run a football program without using any other institutional resources, then maybe you would have a leg to stand on.”

As long as football is counted against male participation numbers for purposes of balancing the scales, some question the need for 80- or 90-man teams.

NFL teams survive with an active roster of 53.

“We don’t pay these kids to be there every year,” Fenwick said. “When you get kids that don’t academically qualify for school or get injured, you don’t have the freedom to go get other ones. At the pro level, if you lose one, you fly in another one. They may have only [53] guys, but they have 150 guys at their fingertips.”

Northridge coaches also point out that college teams need to spend more time on fundamentals, requiring full scout teams.

Northridge has cut its roster to 85 for next season, which coaches say is close to the minimum for safe practices and a competitive team.

That competitive team is about to be more important than ever, with several other men’s sports about to get axed because of a growing football budget.

Fenwick said that brings pressure, not only to win, but to generate the income expected of the department’s costliest sport.

“If the football program can be competitive and build community interest and a base of income, then it should be able to carry the other sports,” Fenwick said.

* Staff writer David Wharton contributed to this story.

* GENDER EQUITY: Officials face problems in Title IX compliance. A1

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Scholarship Outlook

Because Cal State Northridge has 45 football scholarships with no female equivalent, other men’s sports at the university have to be funded at lower levels than their counterparts. Here’s a breakdown from Northridge’s proposed budget for the 1997-98 school year. Money raised by individual programs through private fund-raising is not included.

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Program Scholarships NCAA Limit CSUN % of Limit Men’s Golf 1.5 4 37.5% Women’s Golf 4 6 66.7% Men’s Soccer 4 9.9 40.4% Women’s Soccer 10 12 83.3% Men’s Swimming 1.92 9.9 19.3% Women’s Swimming 7.8 14 55.7% Men’s Volleyball 3.5 4.5 77.7% Women’s Volleyball 12 12 100% Men’s Basketball 12 13 92.3% Women’s Basketball 14 15 93.3% Men’s Baseball 9 11.7 76.9% Women’s Softball 12 12 100% Men’s Track/CC 8 25.2 31.7% Women’s Track/CC 16 36 44.4%

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