BUBB OUSTER OVERDUE; CSUN REQUIRES BIG-TIME AD.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

Cal State Northridge fired Paul Bubb on Tuesday, flat dumped him, and what a shame. I thought they were made for each other.

Northridge was an athletic program trying to be something it wasn't - popular, respectable, big-time. Bubb was a first-time athletic director trying to be something he wasn't - personable, respected, professional.

It was a match made in heaven, or in the Big Sky Conference, anyway. And now, splitsville.

Painful, these things, but all a part of growing up.

Which is what this brief episode is about, if university president Blenda Wilson and the rest of the Northridge administration learn the proper lessons from it.

On its way to maturity, Northridge was bound to make mistakes, and in retrospect the promotion of Bubb 2-1/2 years ago was a big one. Bubb was not an AD.

He'd been the Monmouth College (Illinois) director of alumni and parent relations and ``director of annual giving.'' In plainer words, a fund-raiser.

He'd been the ``director of athletic development'' at Southern Illinois and Drake universities. In plainer words, a fund-raiser.

And, in his early years at Northridge, he'd been the director of athletic development and associate athletic director for external affairs. In plainer words, a fund-raiser.

That's a nice resume for an athletic director if you're a third-rate sports school that plays football on a glorified high school field and basketball in a doghouse. But if you're Northridge, aspiring to be a second-rate sports school, you have to do better.

So this time, hire a professional.

Much of the bad publicity that befell the Matadors in the past two years could have been avoided or at least muted by an AD with the experience, the wits and the political skill to handle a crisis.

Bubb, 41, didn't have the support he needed from his superiors. I mean, at a school like Northridge, where the coaches aren't particularly in demand, the AD should not be paid less than the basketball coach and his own chief assistant; he was.

Bubb didn't have the respect he needed from his subordinates. At an athletic-department retreat in June, coaches at the back of the room were observed quietly mocking the AD as he addressed the staff.

Bubb seemed to be strangely uninvolved in some of the department's most important projects, as when he seemed to learn about the timetable for construction of a new softball diamond from a recent Daily News article.

And in his crucial role as the authoritative spokesman for the athletic department, he was routinely evasive or worse, provoking a suspicious press. Which led to his final, fatal failing, his lie to reporters last week following the arrest of women's basketball coach Michael Abraham on cocaine-distribution charges.

Bubb said he never had an inkling about Abraham's involvement with drugs. In fact, it turned out, some of Abraham's players expressed concern to Bubb two years ago about the coach's behavior. With misjudgments like that, little problems turn into big scandals.

Of course, it's not the first time something like that has happened on Bubb's watch.

Two years ago, he was suspended by the university after the football coach was found to have covered up the shooting of a player, saying the young man was out of action because of an appendectomy.

Under Bubb, the Matadors' first reaction to any probing question was to deny, even when there seemed to be no advantage in doing so.

Such as the case last spring in which the athletic department's attempts at secrecy about the investigation of academic cheating against a women's volleyball player turned a one-day story into a dragged-out embarrassment.

See, at Northridge, even the corruption is small-time.

So this time, hire a professional.

There must be a successful small-college AD, or a talented administrator wasting away in a windowless office at a major sports university, who's dying for a chance to run an athletic department that has nowhere to go but up.

Northridge is no longer the place for on-the-job training. A school with big-time pretentions needs an AD with big-time credentials.

BUBB'S CAREER AT CSUN 

Aug. 1990: Bubb hired as director of athletic development.

July 1995: Bubb appointed interim athletic director, replacing Bob Hiegert.

April 1996: Bubb appointed permanent athletic director.

Sept. 1996: Bubb receives week suspension from President Blenda Wilson for his role in covering up off-campus shooting of a football player.

March 1997: Members of women's basketball team tell Bubb they suspect coach Michael Abraham of drug use.

June 1997: Bubb and other officials eliminate four men's sports, a move later reversed following public outcry.

Oct. 1998: Abraham arrested on federal drug charges.

Nov. 1998: Bubb resigns.

Paul Bubb's Resignation Statement

As information about Michael Abraham has been reviewed over the past week by the university, my judgment has been questioned in regards to confidential information I received from student-athletes in February 1997.

All of the information I was given, which included suspicion about drug use, was treated with the confidentiality in which the student-athletes brought it to me and with a serious approach to finding out as much factual information as was possible.

While I found some of the issues the student-athletes brought to me to be true and I addressed those issues with Coach Abraham, I did not have information presented to me during my review which could confirm drug use by Coach Abraham. My review included speaking to members of the athletic department staff, student-athletes, and senior members of the Oregon State athletic department. Nonetheless, I confronted Coach Abraham and asked if he was using drugs and he denied the allegation. I considered the matter closed and did not forward any further information to the Vice President or President.

At this time, I have decided to leave Cal State Northridge. I have given my best to the university and leave confident in my mind that the decisions I have made as athletic director were in the best interest of the athletic department and the university.

To those who have expressed their support for me during this time, I appreciate your kind thoughts. To the university and community, I wish to express my sincere wishes that this university be allowed to develop its athletic program to its fullest potential, and that everyone work towards that common goal.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos, 2 Boxes

PHOTO (1--Color) Paul Bubb

(2) no caption (Paul Bubb)

BOX: (1) BUBB`S CAREER AT CSUN (see text)

(2) Paul Bubb's Resignation Statement (see text)