Fenwick Feels the Heat : New Northridge Coach Has Had Success but This Is Another League

NORTHRIDGE —  Molding football programs into championship material has long been Jim Fenwick’s craft and passion.

He showed a knack for producing winners by turning Pierce and Valley colleges into national junior college powerhouses.

So why is Fenwick, the first-year coach at Cal State Northridge, growing more nervous as the season approaches?

Because, without a doubt, the stakes have never been higher.

“I really want to start the season correctly,” Fenwick said. “I guess that brings out the anxiety.”

Anyone in his position might feel the same.

The Matadors are in the midst of an ambitious short-range plan to challenge for the title in the Big Sky Conference, arguably the nation’s strongest Division I-AA football league.

It began last season under Dave Baldwin, who left in December to become coach at San Jose State. The Matadors finished 7-4 overall and 5-3 in their Big Sky debut.

That improbable turnabout after finishing 2-8 the year before, including 1-2 in the unremarkable and since disbanded American West Conference, quickly raised the expectations at Northridge and created more pressure to win.

Fenwick, 45, inherited the heat, which soon increased significantly.

When he was hired in January, calling it his dream job, Fenwick was charged with keeping the Matadors upwardly mobile. He was coming off six highly successful seasons at Valley, where he compiled a 30-3 record the past three years and catapulted the Monarchs into national prominence, much as he had done with the Pierce program in the early 1980s.

But in June, Northridge dropped four men’s sports--baseball, volleyball, soccer and swimming--citing financial reasons and the school’s move toward compliance with gender-equity requirements in athletics.

Fenwick’s program suddenly became fodder for critics who argued that the four slashed programs, later reinstated for one year, should have been saved permanently by eliminating football.

Those sentiments, from people in a community which has never truly embraced Northridge football, annoyed Fenwick.

“We are trying to build a tradition here,” Fenwick said. “I’m sorry about what happened with those other programs, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m so engrossed with trying to make my program the best I can make it.”

The Matadors, who have only 45 scholarships compared to the maximum of 63 handed out by other Big Sky schools except Cal State Sacramento, open with road games against Division I-A opponents Boise State, Hawaii and New Mexico State.

If they lose two games or are swept, the Matadors could be in for a cool reception when they play their first home game Sept. 20 against Azusa Pacific, an NAIA Division II team.

The Matadors have been picked by Big Sky coaches to finish fourth in the nine-team conference even though Northridge has 36 lettermen and 12 starters back, including All-Americans Aaron Flowers at quarterback and Marc Goodson at middle linebacker.

Flowers, a senior from Artesia High and Valley, last year established Northridge season records with 3,540 yards passing, 247 completions, a 59.5% completion percentage and 30 touchdowns. He finished second in the Big Sky and in Division I-AA in total offense with 329.3 yards a game.

“We’ll ride on his shoulders for a while,” Fenwick said.

With Flowers directing Northridge’s run-and-shoot offense, which he ran for Fenwick at Valley two years ago, the Matadors fit nicely in the pass-happy Big Sky.

Their receiving corps, led by senior Jerome Henry and sophomore Aaron Arnold, is perhaps the most talented in the conference. Henry last season caught 47 passes for 767 yards and Arnold is expected to blossom after playing sparingly last year.

Goodson, 6 feet 2 and 235 pounds, anchors the defense. The high-strung senior, a preseason All-American, set Northridge season records with 150 tackles and 78 assists.

“He’s our leader on defense,” Fenwick said. “He kind of rallies everybody.”

Fenwick hopes such emotion translates into victories. And fewer anxious moments for him.

“It’s a good kind of tension,” Fenwick said. “It’s good to have this anticipation going into the season. . . . It makes me old and it keeps me young at the same time.”