CSUN NOTEBOOK: SITE FRIGHT SET ARIGHT.

Byline: Jill Painter Staff Writer

There wasn't enough money for Tony Luftman to be the radio voice of the Cal State Northridge men's basketball team. But there was just enough to get his voice on the Internet and Luftman welcomed the opportunity.

Luftman, who handles play-by-play duties for CSUN's athletic Web site at gomatadors.com, has called every CSUN game this season. All you need is a computer to hear how CSUN (15-8) is doing when it travels to out-of-the-way cities like Missoula, Mont., and Pocatello, Idaho.

But last week, Luftman was told the plug was being pulled on home broadcasts because of financial problems. A few days later, CSUN athletic director Dick Dull decided the athletic department would absorb the remaining costs and Luftman could get back to doing what he does best.

``As you can imagine, I went from being ecstatic because we were going to do all the games to devastated to ecstatic,'' Luftman said.

Each broadcast costs approximately $250, totaling $7,000 for the season. The Shepherd of the Hills church in Northridge and other companies and organizations donated money, but there wasn't enough.

Money for radio broadcasts came from the president's budget last year, but CSUN was set to start its historic 2001 season without radio. Assistant coach Shon Tarver approached his friend Luftman and they came up with the idea and approached school officials.

Luftman, 24, considers this his big break. He did Internet broadcasting for the first time for Vanguard University (formerly Southern California College) two years ago. He has no color analyst, but he doesn't need one. It's been a lifelong dream for Luftman to get paid to talk sports, and he has plenty of practice.

When he was 12, he watched college football in his room and called the game into a tape recorder. His dad would listen to it on the way to work and offer feedback.

``I love the emotion of sports and putting sports in a greater context,'' Luftman said. ``I like bringing the drama out of it as opposed to talking X's and O's and sticking to the nuts and bolts - points and rebounds. I'd rather focus on human-interest stories.''

Luftman was an interesting story when he was 15. He went to a sports broadcasting camp and was featured on ``Inside Stuff'' and in Sports Illustrated for Kids as a kid with a penchant to talk sports. And talk and talk.

He drew from his experiences as a ball boy with the UCLA men's basketball team. While a freshman at UCLA, Luftman was a manager for the team when it won the NCAA Championship in 1995. He was known as the guy who'd be sitting at the end of the bench talking the whole game.

--Good start: The undefeated CSUN women's tennis team (4-0) kept its unblemished record intact with a 4-3 win over UC Santa Barbara on Saturday. No. 1 singles player Tereza Simonyan won her match 6-2, 6-2 and No. 3 Gabriela Reiner and No. 5. Tia Kaasalaninen also won in two sets. CSUN swept all three doubles matches. CSUN beat UC Irvine 4-3 last week.

--Conference drought: The CSUN men's volleyball team fell to 0-4 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation after it was swept by BYU in three games Saturday. The Matadors (3-6) have played a brutal schedule, which included top-five teams Long Beach State and Stanford. CSUN has won just one game - against Long Beach State - in its four conference matches. Outside hitter Joe Nargi had 21 kills against BYU and averages 4.35 per game.

CSUN plays at the University of Hawaii on Thursday and Saturday this week.

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Photo: TONY LUFTMAN

The ex-UCLA manager considers the CSUN sportscasting job his big break.