CSUN HAS VALLEY LOOK; PLAYERS FOLLOW FENWICK.

Byline: Howard Beck Daily News Staff Writer

Brett Nordyke is counting former Valley College teammates now playing for Cal State Northridge, and the number grows every couple seconds.

``There's five. There's six or seven, and I'm sure other Valley guys wanted to come here,'' Nordyke is saying, explaining how players are following coach Jim Fenwick from Valley to CSUN.

But Nordyke's counting doesn't stop.

``There's actually eight,'' he says, remembering one more name. ``Oh, wait, there's nine. I just saw another one walk out.''

CSUN begins the 1997 season today at Boise State, with a new coach, Fenwick, at the helm, and many Fenwick proteges wearing Matadors uniforms.

Fenwick is a San Fernando Valley coaching success, with five conference titles and four bowl game victories during an 11-year head coaching career at Pierce and Valley. His teams went 30-3 the last three seasons and were undefeated in conference play.

He brings an 84-32-1 record to CSUN, his first Division I job.

And yes, he brings many loyal players as well, all of whom say the 45-year-old Fenwick is simply a winner.

There's Nordyke, a starting defensive end, who played at Valley, went to Fresno State, hated it, and came back to Los Angeles to rejoin Fenwick. There's Aaron Flowers, the starting quarterback, a Valley veteran who preceded Fenwick here but was quite happy to see him again. There's Marcus Harvey, one of the Matadors' top running backs, who followed Fenwick to CSUN.

They say they want to win. They say Fenwick knows how.

``I went to (Valley) for two years, and we won and there's nothing better than winning,'' Nordyke said. ``Then I went to Fresno. We weren't that good a team, we weren't very sound. And then I come back here, and all we look forward to is winning. We don't even talk about losing. We want to go undefeated.

``That's the kind of attitude he brings. And he gets the players here. He's a winner. He always will be.''

Flowers was Fenwick's quarterback in 1995 at Valley, when the Monarchs won the first of two straight Western State Conference titles. He said Fenwick is always focused on the highest of goals.

When they were at Valley, Fenwick put up a sign: ``Beat Bakersfield.'' That was the route to the championship.

And upon Fenwick's arrival at CSUN, Flowers said, he put up a new sign: ``Beat Montana.''

``It just kind of sets a tone,'' Flowers said.

``It's good to see coaches say, you've got to have that fire in your heart and play as hard as you can, and when you see a coach working as hard as they can for you and you see that same fire in his eyes, it's a lot easier to play for him. He puts his players before anybody else, and that helps.''

Fenwick is known as soft-spoken (most of the time) straightforward (all of the time) and loyal to his players. He rarely raises his voice but makes his point when he does.

Now Fenwick has brought all those qualities to a team with high hopes. Beat Montana? No one here rules it out. But the coach's new legacy begins with a tough road game at a Division I-A school.

Fenwick doesn't hesitate to admit his anxiety.

On the eve of his debut, Fenwick readily admitted he was nervous, and probably would continue to be until he's ``on the way home, when I know whether we've won or not.''

A longtime Valley resident, Fenwick feels a personal commitment to the school and the community. He wants to be here a long time - he wants to be winning here for a long time.

``I feel very responsible to friends and family and the community, to try to bring the pride to this school. I really, really, really want to win and really do it right and be respectable,'' he said. ``That's important to me.'' If success breeds more success, it also breeds high expectations. After the Matadors' surprising 7-4 record and third-place finish in their inaugural Big Sky Conference season, they're expected to remain a Division I-AA power. And after all he has accomplished in tFhe Valley, Fenwick has created high expectations of his own.

``I'm afraid people will measure me on my first game instead of at the end of the season,'' Fenwick said. ``There's always a nervousness about this being my first year here and people judging us on this first game.''

Fenwick is serious only for a minute, then quips, ``I want them to measure me if we win, but I don't want them to measure me if we lose.''

``That's the competitive side of me,'' Fenwick says softly, ``but I'm not going to change.''

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2 Photos

Photo: (1) New CSUN coach Jim Fenwick brings an impressive resume from Valley College.

Michael Owen Baker / Daily News

(2) QB Aaron Flowers played for Jim Fenwick at Valley.

Daily News File Photo