EDITORIAL : THE PUBLIC BE DAMNED CSUN OFFICIALS ARE COMPOUNDING THEIR ERRORS.

Call it Mismanagement 101 or a crash course in bad judgment.

By any name, the mishandling of intercollegiate athletics at Cal State Northridge has resulted in a tragic community-relations problem for the San Fernando Valley institution.

CSUN officials, however, seem to be in denial about the full extent of their community-relations difficulties, which indicates that they have an even bigger problem on their hands than they either suspect or care to admit.

CSUN's announcement Wednesday that it will immediately discontinue its most successful men's varsity sports - baseball and volleyball, as well as soccer and swimming and diving - looks like a repudiation of popular sports that are a perfect fit for the Valley.

To the public, the decision is wholly inexplicable.

The explanations offered so far by university leaders are unpersuasive. They appear to gloss over past miscalculations and misjudgments, and don't directly confront the university's years-long delay in complying with gender-equity laws in college sports.

The bureaucratic process that led up to the final decision did not attempt to include the general public, which is one more detail that seems lost on the academicians in charge at CSUN.

CSUN President Blenda J. Wilson, who was unavailable for comment on Wednesday, regards the university community solely as the students and faculty. We believe it also includes the people of the San Fernando and neighboring valleys, Burbank and Glendale who supply most of CSUN's students and count on CSUN as a central component of cultural and intellectual life.

In a statement Thursday to the university community as she defines it, Wilson addressed some of the issues. Offering assurances that she is well aware of the public reaction, her statement concluded with the observation that ``the emotion that will be displayed in the media is one measure of the degree to which sports influence our general culture.''

To that, the public may very well respond with its own observation: Sports exert an even stronger influence over CSUN officials who, in essence, are scrapping successful, established men's sports to finance their own dream of someday having a powerhouse football team in the Big Sky Conference. That is not a bad goal, of course - but in the public's mind it doesn't justify terminating successful sports programs to pay for that dream.

We would compare it to remodeling your house without making sure you have a place to live during the project, and then ending up homeless because you ran out of money. In the case of CSUN, its financial problem is worse because of procrastination in complying with gender-equity requirements that became law a quarter-century ago. Now a price must be paid.

CSUN officials may think that they've done the right thing, but they still haven't acquitted themselves in the eyes of many alumni, fans and friends of CSUN throughout the Valley and the region.

Those folks still love the university, but they have strong doubts about the judgment of the officials in charge and their commitment to the community as a whole.

And if those officials don't realize that, or if they think it will blow over after a week or so, then it's just one more problem they're putting off until it's too late.