CSUN GETS BIG-TIME HELP.

Byline: CHRIS BRANAM Local

Here they stood, two men who dominated college football on the West Coast for more than two decades, stumping for a Division I-AA program in a Division I city.

Terry Donahue and John Robinson, football royalty, were lending a hand to Cal State Northridge and first-year coach Ron Ponciano by speaking at a fund-raiser Friday in Woodland Hills.

The task - one for which Ponciano has enlisted heavy hitters like Robinson and Donahue - is to put CSUN on the football map. No easy job.

With more fund-raisers like the one last week and the successful recent golf tournament, potential recruits might not view CSUN in the same light. Ponciano isn't letting the athletic department's limited resources slow him down. He is being creative and energetic. And that probably isn't lost on Ron Kopita, the university's vice president of student affairs who has been nonplused by the community's support for CSUN.

Kopita attended the dinner, billed as ``Legends of the Game.'' There were a few glitches - a Trojans highlight reel left out Charles White's game-winning touchdown against Ohio State in the 1980 Rose Bowl. There was nervous laughter when radio personality Bill Werndl, who emceed the dinner and talked so loudly into the microphone that he was probably heard in Tarzana, called CSUN the ``Marauders.''

It would be easy for an outsider to overlook the Matadors in a city where Trojans and Bruins dominate. CSUN seeks respectability and an identity in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, headlines were made mainly when the school decided to cut some of its programs.

But the CSUN supporters, who numbered near 150 and paid $120 a plate, liked what they heard.

Robinson, who was tanned and admittedly refreshed about not having to go through another grinding season at USC, gave an impassioned plea.

``Terry and I came here to support what you are doing here,'' Robinson said, just minutes after watching himself celebrate a national championship in the video presentation. ``This game is important. What it does for people is important. . . . Northridge football is important. Your support of the players is important.''

Robinson said he would rather have seen a Northridge football highlight film, rather than the USC-UCLA tribute.

Donahue, one of the best speakers in sports, was just as sincere. For years, he probably gave little thought to CSUN as he drove through the West Valley on his morning commute from Westlake Village to Spaulding Field.

After all, the largest crowd in North Campus Stadium history - 7,127 in 1990 - would barely register a blip with the coach whose team plays its home games at the Rose Bowl.

But Donahue said that being away from the game for two years has given him a broader focus of college football.

``Tonight is about football,'' he said. ``It's about football at Northridge. It will take patience and persistence.''

Before letting the keynote speakers take the podium, Ponciano told the crowd that his goal is simple: ``We want to be the best I-AA team in the nation.''

Ponciano exudes enthusiasm, for sure. But CSUN should be ecstatic about the coaches the school now has in place entering the 21st century.

CSUN's Bobby Braswell is a classy, no-nonsense basketball coach. He's an uncommon man in college hoops. Recruitable high school standouts are starting to pick up on that.

Baseball coach Mike Batesole didn't whine when his program was given the ax and then sloppily reinstated last year after the recruiting season was over. He put together a patchwork team that went 37-19.

And then there are the lesser-known coaches, who work no less hard in ``non-revenue'' sports.

Robinson and Donahue went to countless fund-raisers during their coaching careers. To get them to stump for Matadors football was a coup and a signal that raising money can be done - even at CSUN.