At UC Irvine, Last Cut Proves the Deepest

Mike Powell long-jumped for UC Irvine. Steve Scott ran the mile.

Now, it appears, no other man ever will.

Brady Anderson used to hit baseballs at Anteater Field. Gary Wheelock, the old Angel and Seattle Mariner, used to pitch them.

Now, Anteater Field is desolate, deserted, and there’s no reason for anybody to come back.

The budget crunch within the California State and UC systems is a guillotine that refuses to rest, and Tuesday, the UC Irvine baseball, men’s track and field and men’s cross-country programs became the latest to trudge up the scaffold.

For Anteater baseball Coach Mike Gerakos, it was an inevitability he staved off a year ago by agreeing to budget cuts and around-the-clock fund-raising when the program was first threatened. The shoestring had to be whittled to a few frayed threads, but the deal Gerakos cut last May was one everybody seemed willing to live with, even if that meant living hand-to-mouth.

Irvine baseball gets the win, Gerakos gets the save?

At the time, Gerakos thought so.

“All we got was a stay of execution,” he said Tuesday. “We stayed on death row. They kept us there for a year and four days.”

Baseball was targeted in 1991 because, in a police lineup of potentially expendable sports, it had the right profile.

Relatively high price tag. (In 1991, Irvine’s baseball expenditures totaled $218,481. This season, they were $174,382.)

Relatively low revenue production. (Anteater season ticket-holders are an endangered species.)

All-male participation. (Title IX, Title IX.)

But Gerakos figured the belt-tightening of ’91 would be enough to preserve the program through ’92 and beyond. “I was told to run a fiscally responsible program and I did,” he said. “We were told to raise money to balance our budget and we did.

“I knew we were going to have to cut senior scholarships after this season. That was the last scenario presented to me. No one mentioned the worst.”

During those days of limbo last spring, Gerakos released all of his recruits from their commitments to Irvine. All of them took Gerakos up on the offer except Jon Van Zandt. It was a blessing for Gerakos; Van Zandt led the team in earned-run average (3.91) and finished 7-6, including a victory over College World Series-bound Cal State Fullerton.

But for Van Zandt?

“I still would’ve done the same thing again,” Van Zandt said. “Coach Gerakos was very honest with me from the start. He said the program might be dropped, but it wasn’t definite yet. You say that to a top recruit and that’s it. They’re out of there.

“I stayed because I just wanted to play and I didn’t know what else was out there. There aren’t that many Division I opportunities available. I talked to some other schools last year, but I never followed up on them.

“I might be calling those schools back now.”

There are few rainouts at UC Irvine, but the Anteaters played beneath dark clouds all season.

“We’d head into Fresno,” pitcher Ernie Ramirez said, “and there’d be 3,000, 4,000 fans in the stands and we’d say, ‘Wow, what a great place to play.’ Meanwhile, we’re worrying about having enough baseballs to finish the season. . . . Not too many players at Fresno had to show up at (fund-raising) camps every other week.”

Still, Gerakos and his players responded to Tuesday’s announcement as if it were an ambush.

“Last year, we were much more scared than this year,” Ramirez said. “If they did anything, I figured they’d just cut something else. I never thought they’d drop it completely. I already started working out for next season.”

Said Gerakos: “I just thought they’d bastardize it a little more than they had last year.”

Irvine baseball also lacked the national reputation of Vince O’Boyle’s men’s track team, which O’Boyle had hoped would prove to be his sport’s salvation. But O’Boyle’s program was over budget, due mainly to $20,000 worth of bleacher seats now rusting in a pile because they didn’t fit the school’s track stadium, and its large contingent of male athletes made it extremely gender-equity vulnerable.

Irvine baseball was 312-338 in 12 seasons under Gerakos, topping out with a second-place Big West finish in 1987. In their final season, the Anteaters placed sixth in conference with an overall record of 23-27.

That pales in the exhaust of Cal State Fullerton’s Omaha-bound plane, but obscures the fact that Gerakos has had to subsist on roughly one-third the budget Augie Garrido has, recruiting leftovers and relying heavily on walk-ons.

“Whatever school picks up (Gerakos) is going to do great,” pitcher Matt LaBelle said. “Hey, he was close to .500 here with pretty much no talent. I’m speaking of myself. I sat on the bench in high school; I was the fifth pitcher on my high school team. (But) I got a chance here.”

Orange Coast College very well could be Gerakos’ next stop. The school recently lost longtime coach Mike Mayne and is accepting applications. But Tuesday, Gerakos said, “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. I should’ve been prepared for this after last year. I’m a slow learner, I guess.”

UC Irvine without men’s track? Unthinkable, contends O’Boyle. “Here we are, in an Olympic year, with Mike Powell favored to win a gold medal, and we’re dropping track and field,” O’Boyle said. “That makes a lot of sense.”

UC Irvine without baseball? A bigger loss than you might suspect, Van Zandt says.

“You look at Fullerton’s roster and there aren’t that many players from Orange County,” Van Zandt said. “The players are here. With financial support, we could’ve kept them here.”

Second fiddle was never such a bad thing to be, as local red-chip baseball prospects will see soon enough. That was a valuable instrument the community lost on Tuesday.

A Mixed Record of Success at Irvine

BASEBALL

Year How the Team Fared Coach 1970 33-12-3 as an NCAA Division II independent Gary Adams 1971 27-17-1 as an NCAA Division II independent Gary Adams 1972 33-19-1 as an NCAA Division II independent Gary Adams 1973 44-12-0, won NCAA Division II title as an independent Gary Adams 1974 48-8-0, won NCAA Division II title as an independent Gary Adams 1975 15-27-0 as an NCAA Division II independent Tom Spence 1976 24-20-1 as an NCAA Division II independent Tom Spence 1977 30-23-0 as an NCAA Division II independent Eddie Allen 1978 17-28-1 in NCAA Division I, 10-16-1 in the SCBA Eddie Allen 1979 23-36-1 overall, 9-19-1 in the SCBA Steve Hertz 1980 37-25-1 overall, 18-9 in the SCBA Steve Hertz 1981 31-23-0 overall, 13-15 in the SCBA Mike Gerakos 1982 28-29-1 overall, 11-17 in the SCBA Mike Gerakos 1983 25-25-0 overall, 16-12 in the SCBA Mike Gerakos 1984 23-34-1 overall, 11-16 in the SCBA Mike Gerakos 1985 27-28-1 overall, 14-13 in the PCAA Mike Gerakos 1986 20-26-2 overall, 9-12 in the PCAA Mike Gerakos 1987 27-26-1 overall, 13-8 in the PCAA Mike Gerakos 1988 30-28-0 overall, 9-12 in the PCAA Mike Gerakos 1989 20-35-1 overall, 6-15 in the Big West Mike Gerakos 1990 34-25-0 overall, 10-11 in the Big West Mike Gerakos 1991 24-32-0 overall, 6-15 in the Big West Mike Gerakos 1992 23-27-0 overall, 10-14 in the Big West Mike Gerakos

MEN’S TRACK

Year How the Team Fared Coach 1972 Competed as NCAA Division II independent Bo Roberson 1973 Competed as NCAA Division II independent Sam West 1974 Competed as NCAA Division II independent Bill Toomey 1975 Finished fifth in NCAA Division II Bill Toomey 1976 Finished first in NCAA Division II Len Miller 1977 Finished second in NCAA Division II Len Miller 1978 Finished first in Len Miller PCAA meet, sixth in NCAA Division I 1979 Finished first in PCAA meet, 17th in NCAA Len Miller 1980 Finished fifth in PCAA meet Kevin McNair 1981 Finished second in PCAA meet Kevin McNair 1982 Finished second in PCAA meet, 63rd in NCAA Kevin McNair 1983 Finished second in PCAA meet Kevin McNair 1984 Finished third in PCAA meet, Kevin McNair later forfeited for using ineligible athlete 1985 Weren’t eligible for team Vince O’Boyle scoring in PCAA meet for violation in 1984 1986 Finished second in the PCAA meet Vince O’Boyle 1987 Finished second in the PCAA meet Vince O’Boyle 1988 Finished second in the PCAA meet, 55th in NCAA Vince O’Boyle 1989 Finished second in the Big West meet Vince O’Boyle 1990 Finished fourth in Vince O’Boyle the Big West meet, 38th in NCAA 1991 Finished second in the Big West meet Vince O’Boyle 1992 Finished second in the Big West meet Vince O’Boyle

MEN’S CROSS-COUNTRY

Year How the Team Fared Coach 1971 Competed as an NCAA Division II independent Bo Roberson 1972 Competed as an NCAA Division II independent Bo Roberson 1973 Competed as an NCAA Division II independent Len Miller 1974 Finished 13th in NCAA Division II meet Len Miller 1975 Finished first in NCAA Division II meet Len Miller 1976 Finished first in NCAA Division II meet Len Miller 1977 Finished first in Len Miller PCAA meet, 15th in NCAA Division I 1978 Finished second in PCAA meet Len Miller 1979 Finished sixth in PCAA meet Larry Knuth 1980 Finished first in PCAA meet Larry Knuth 1981 Finished second in PCAA meet Larry Knuth 1982 Finished first in PCAA meet Vince O’Boyle 1983 Finished second in PCAA meet Vince O’Boyle 1984 Finished second in PCAA meet Vince O’Boyle 1985 Finished first in PCAA meet Vince O’Boyle 1986 Finished first in Vince O’Boyle PCAA meet, 11th in NCAA 1987 Finished first in Vince O’Boyle PCAA meet, 14th in NCAA 1988 Finished second in Big West meet Vince O’Boyle 1989 Finished first in Big West meet Vince O’Boyle 1990 Finished first in Big West meet Vince O’Boyle 1991 Finished first in Big West meet Vince O’Boyle