CSUN Has Only Outside Shot for Indoor Success

Ready or not, the Cal State Northridge men’s and women’s track and field teams will open the indoor season in today’s Silver State Invitational at the Reno Livestock and Events Center.

Northridge Coach Don Strametz has traditionally viewed the indoor season as a chance for Matador athletes to post personal bests while getting ready for the outdoor campaign that starts in March. But this year, his expectations are not as high.

He doesn’t expect a slew of personal bests from his charges.

“We’re just not as far along this year as we were a year ago,” Strametz said.

“The throwers are fine, but the (jumpers, hurdlers and sprinters) and the distance runners are not where we were. I’d say we’re only at about 70% compared to last year.

“We just did not have as good of a fall as we had before.”

Strametz said that the defeat of the athletic fee referendum in October and the resignation of longtime assistant coach Tony Veney in December contributed to the current predicament.

When the fee referendum was defeated, football and men’s track were said to be on the chopping block to make up for a projected departmental deficit of $700,000 for the 1995-96 school year.

Men’s track has since been taken off the endangered sports list. But for several weeks after the referendum’s failure, many athletes were more concerned with the fate of their program than with working out.

“You could see that they weren’t totally focused on the task at hand,” Strametz said.

Veney took a full-time position teaching history at Granada Hills High. The former UCLA standout had been the sprint, hurdles and horizontal-jumps coach at Northridge since 1984.

Strametz, who has worked with Northridge’s middle- and long-distance runners in recent years, has also been training the sprinters, hurdlers and jumpers since Veney’s departure, but he admits that he and his charges are still undergoing a “feeling-out period.”

“They’re trying to see where I want to go and I’m trying to see where they’re at right now,” he said. “It’s going to be interesting to see what happens this season. I think it’s going to be one of those years where we don’t produce the big marks until later in the outdoor season.”

Marshall Evans, who will compete in the 55-meter dash and the mile relay, and Tyrone Gayles, who holds the school-record of 62 feet 7 1/2 inches in the 35-pound weight throw, are expected to be two of Northridge’s top male performers in today’s meet.

Shot-putter Teresa Stricklin, and Tannel House and Cherice Ellison, who will compete in the 55, 200 and long jump, are expected to lead the women.