GO AHEAD, BLENDA WILSON, CUT OUT ALL CSUN SPORTS - IF THAT'S WHAT MATTERS MOST; COMMUNITY, ATHLETES LEFT FEELING BETRAYED.

Byline: Dennis McCarthy 

``We are a university. Our first and highest commitment must be to our academic program.'' Blenda Wilson president of Cal State Northridge

I agree 100 percent, Blenda, but your hatchet men didn't go far enough Wednesday. Why stop at just cutting men's baseball, soccer, swimming and volleyball?

Let's cut 'em all. Gut the whole sports program. Put every last dime wasted on sports into more books, computers and classroom teachers.

You can't get any higher commitment to academics than that, right? Trust me, Blenda. You'll be the talk of the next university presidents cocktail party.

The woman who returned universities to their first and highest commitment. No, not toga or tailgate parties. Academics.

So, let's cut football and basketball, too. Cut all those annoying little sports that boys like to play in college when they're not making a play for the girls.

And to be fair about this gender equity thing, let's cut all the girls' sports, too.

That way, both sexes will have plenty of time to spend in the library boning up for final exams and other assorted academic things.

I'm telling you, Blenda, this thing can work. No sports, period. Not even Frisbee on the lawn.

Let's talk when you get back in town from this business trip you left on just before the bombshell hit Wednesday.

By the way, nice timing. Houdini couldn't have done it any better.

Just let me know what disguise you're planning on wearing when it's time to sneak back into the Valley, and I'll meet you.

The Groucho Marx moustache and glasses? The vampire wig? The Garbo shades?

Yeah, it's that bad around here today, Blenda. People are pretty mad - men and women. You're about as popular with the local baseball crowd as Paula Jones is with Democrats.

I wouldn't hang around too many high school baseball diamonds or Little League fields when you get back. The parents are testier than the umps.

A lot of their kids come from families that can't afford to send them away to big-name, expensive colleges - kids who are good at their sports, but not scholarship good, if you know what I mean.

CSUN was their ace in the hole, Blenda. CSUN was where a local kid could go to get an affordable college education, save money by living at home, and still get an honest shot at playing major college-level sports if he was good enough.

Now, it doesn't matter how good he is. That shot's gone in his own back yard in baseball, soccer, swimming and volleyball.

It was never suppose to be this way, was it, Blenda? Never supposed to be about money, and us-against-them when the courts said girls deserved a level playing field with the boys.

The court was right. We all knew it. All our daughters had been getting shortchanged athletically since the first day they showed up for kindergarten in a dress.

But why did the courts bother? Why did the National Organization for Women sue the entire Cal State University system in 1992 to make sure that girls got that level playing field in college?

If a university's first and highest commitment is purely academics, why bother?

Because sports is important, Blenda. It's an integral part of the total fabric of college life.

It's a safety valve from all the nights of cramming for exams and writing papers, from all the pressure of worrying if all this work will ever land you a good job when college life is over, and you've got to get serious.

Sports is campus pride, campus spirit.

Wednesday, CSUN lost both, Blenda, and maybe we're all to blame.

You and your right-hand men should have seen the Grim Reaper coming a long time ago for these sports - should have gotten out in the community to warn us their demise was coming unless we stepped in to help.

But we didn't get the warning until it was too late to do anything but get mad.

In many ways, I guess we all took CSUN for granted, Blenda.

In last week's column on three attorneys reaching into their pockets to pay the salary of a juror who no longer was eligible for pay from her company because she had gone beyond the 15-day limit the company would pay for jury duty, I mislabeled Judge David Schacter as a Municipal Court judge.

He is a Superior Court judge. I apologize for the demotion.