COUGARS COACH RETURNS TO HIS ROOTS.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

It seems that Chuck Lyon can't get away from Cougars. Not that he wants to; it's just that the former quarterback wore that name on his uniform at College of the Canyons and Washington State University.

This month, the pattern came full circle when College of the Canyons hired Lyon to be head coach of the newly resuscitated Cougar football team. This fall, 25 years after he played his first college season, Lyon will be back on the football field - actually, the sidelines - as a new era of Cougar football begins.

College of the Canyons disbanded its football program in the spring of 1982. As the new head coach, Lyon has about six months to recruit players, buy equipment, assemble a staff of assistants and - perhaps his most difficult task - revive a Saturday-night tradition that has been missing in action for 16 seasons.

``Because of the time constraints I'm under, this building from the ground up, starting in late January, is quite a task,'' Lyon said. ``But it's a task I'm looking forward to. It's been good. It's been fun. Of course, it's only been a week.''

Indeed, Lyon realizes he's still in the honeymoon period of his new job, having reported for his first day of work Tuesday when the college's spring semester began. The real challenges lie ahead as the coach must convince high school seniors to come play for a brand-new football team rather than the established programs in place at Valley College or Glendale Community College, for instance.

A generation of Santa Clarita Valley football players have done just that after high school, opting to enroll at other junior colleges and make the long commute simply because those campuses had football teams and College of the Canyons did not.

Lyon, 42, hopes he can stem that exodus and convince athletes from Canyon, Hart, Saugus and Valencia high schools who don't have scholarships to four-year universities to come play for the hometown team.

His sales pitch, Lyon said, will begin with the academic aspect of being a student-athlete. ``I know the instruction at this school is exceptional. That's my biggest recruiting tool,'' he said.

Coming from an assistant coaching job at Long Beach City College, where the enrollment hovers around 25,000, Lyon said he'll promote College of the Canyons' much smaller size - about 7,500 students - as another selling point.

``If you come to College of the Canyons, you're not going to sit in a class of 200 people,'' he said. ``I love the personal approach at College of the Canyons.''

His athletes can take their required general education courses, get in a lot of playing time, and, when their two years are up, they'll be in a good position to transfer, Lyon said.

``They'll still have a chance to receive a scholarship to a four-year school. That's the path I took, and I took it through this college,'' Lyon said. ``I would not be sitting here today if I had not gone through College of the Canyons and (met) the people I met here.''

On the wall of his office, in the gymnasium basement, hang some reminders of Lyon's Cougar roots.

Framed black-and-white photos show Lyon the quarterback wearing No. 12, and Lyon the assistant coach, circa 1977, alongside Larry Reisbig and Chuck Ferrero, both of whom had tenures as Cougars head football coach.

``That coaching staff (photo) has always been on my wall, (as have) the two pictures of me playing at College of the Canyons,'' Lyon said. ``I do that because, when (players) walk in this office, I think it lends a little bit of credibility.''

He hopes those snapshots will tell his Cougar squad that their coach was once a student athlete just like them. ``College football has been here. This is nothing new,'' Lyon said. ``And the guy running the show has done it.''

In fact, Lyon has the distinction of scoring the very first touchdown at Cougar Stadium. ``I didn't have a great arm, but I was fast,'' he said. ``I wasn't real fast, but I was fast enough.''

After Washington State, Lyon worked four seasons as a College of the Canyons assistant coach. ``I was around the football program until it ended,'' he said.

From 1985 to 1996, he coached football at Pasadena City College and then spent the 1997 season as an assistant to Reisbig, his longtime friend and mentor, at Long Beach.

Lyon said he hopes the bulk of his roster will be Canyon, Hart, Saugus and Valencia grads, but the novelty of a new team in the Western State Conference is bound to attract some players from out of the area, he said.

``I expect we will have a mixture of Antelope Valley kids, Santa Clarita Valley kids and San Fernando Valley kids,'' Lyon said. ``I've had 10 guys walk in (the office) already.''

Those who try out for the team can expect to play football in Lyon's trademark style.

``Philosophically, teams of mine will play disciplined and play hard. We'll throw the ball, I would say, 60 percent of the time, and run the ball 40 percent of the time,'' the coach said.

``It seems to be the system that the players have the most fun in and the system that I can produce the most points in,'' Lyon said. ``It has worked for me in the past and worked well . . . but I'm smart enough to change the style to fit the personnel,'' he added.

This job is more than just a homecoming to his old campus; coaching football, Lyon said, ``is what I wanted to do from the time I was 10 years old.''

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PHOTO (Color) Former Cougars quarterback Chuck Lyon is back to coach the new team.

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News