Swim Coach to Meet With CSUN’s Kopita

Cal State Northridge swimming Coach Barry Schreifels said he will meet Monday with Ronald Kopita, the school’s vice president in charge of student affairs, to present a plan to fund the men’s swimming team for the 1997-98 season.

Schreifels hopes to follow the lead of men’s soccer Coach Marwan Ass’ad, who convinced Northridge administrators this week that he could raise the necessary money to operate his program for another year. Swimming and soccer were among four men’s sports dropped by the school last week because of budget and gender-equity concerns.

Schreifels, working closely with former Northridge swimming Coach Pete Accardy, said he already has received pledges of $6,000, the amount needed to operate the men’s team for one more season. The school has committed to pay salaries and scholarships.

Schreifels said none of Northridge’s 14 recruits have asked to be released from their letters of intent, and all five returning swimmers indicated they will be back.

Cal State Northridge freshmen Cheree Hicks and Christina Tolson, and state high school pole vault champion Bridget Pearson of Hoover head a list of athletes who are scheduled to compete in the USA Track & Field Junior Championships in Edwardsville, Ill., today and Sunday.

Hicks, who holds the Northridge record of 180 feet 2 inches in the women’s discus, and Tolson, who holds the record of 179-2 in the hammer throw, will compete in those events today and in the shotput Sunday.

Pearson, a junior-to-be at Hoover, also will compete Sunday.

The top two in each event qualify for the U.S. team for the Pan American Junior Championships in Havana on July 18-20.

Familiar face: Ron Veres, who served as Simi Valley High football coach for four seasons in the early 1980s, has been appointed to the same position again.

Veres, the Pioneers’ head coach from 1980 through 1983 and their offensive coordinator last season, replaces Roger McCamy. McCamy resigned to become Simi Valley’s athletic director.