Mr. X Marked the Spot in 1997 : Fenwick, Braswell Among Those Who Impacted Sports in Region

One year ago, while looking ahead as we do every December, we picked seven people from the region we believed would make an impact on the sports scene in 1997.

We called it the Seven for ’97.

Now it’s time to see how our selections fared during the year.

MR. X

That’s what we called the football coach at Cal State Northridge because, last December, nobody knew who it would be in 1997.

The one sure thing was that Matador Coach Dave Baldwin had just left to run the program at San Jose State and somebody would soon replace him at Northridge.

Jim Fenwick turned out to be that someone.

Fenwick, the architect of nationally prominent programs at Valley and Pierce colleges, became Northridge’s ninth football coach in January.

And also the man on the spot.

Five months after Fenwick was hired, Northridge dropped four men’s sports--baseball, soccer, swimming and volleyball--for financial reasons and to help the school meet gender-equity requirements in sports.

The decision was blasted by critics, including some who proposed cutting football to rescue the axed programs, which now have been reinstated through at least 1998-99.

Fenwick, who constantly sought to build interest in his team, guided the Matadors through their second Big Sky Conference season with the coals of controversy still burning.

The Matadors received about the same crowd support at home games as in previous seasons. They finished 6-6 overall and 4-4 in the Big Sky after being expected to challenge for the conference title.

At times, Fenwick probably would have liked to keep his identity as Mr. X.

BOBBY BRASWELL

When we included Braswell in our list last year, it was more in anticipation of what he could do this season coaching the Northridge men’s basketball team.

After all, Braswell was roughly one month into his first season with the Matadors last December and not expected to immediately take them to the NCAA tournament.

Well, Northridge came within one victory of getting there, losing to Montana in the Big Sky Conference tournament title game. The Matadors had a 14-15 record, their most victories since finishing 16-11 in the 1988-89 season.

Braswell, a former coach at Cleveland High and a former assistant at Long Beach State and Oregon, said early last season that Northridge would be a better team this season. The team’s record (3-6) doesn’t reflect it so far, but Braswell probably will be proven correct by March.

Northridge’s 1997-98 recruiting class was ranked 36th in the nation by an analyst and the Matadors surely will impact the conference derby, this time without sneaking up on anyone.

LORENZO ROMAR

Much like with Braswell, we speculated on Romar, believing he could rescue and reshape the Pepperdine men’s basketball team from years in the dumps.

The expected time for the reclamation project to start paying dividends was this season, when the Waves could count on three touted players that were inactive in 1996-97: Gerald Brown, sidelined because of knee surgery, and transfers omm’A Givens from UCLA and Jelani Gardner from California.

Pepperdine desperately needed the trio after finishing with a 6-21 record last season, its worst showing since a 2-24 debacle in the 1965-66 season.

So far, Romar’s second campaign with the Waves (6-4) has been unnerving, his eternal optimism tested with every dribble.

At times, Romar looks and sounds puzzled, unable to explain why Givens is not living up to expectations. Or why the Waves couldn’t score more than one basket in a 17-minute stretch in a recent game. Or why they can give No. 2-ranked Kansas a run for the money before losing, 96-83, last week but can’t compete with Northridge and lose, 81-66, in November.

On the positive side, the Waves already matched their victories of last season.

AMY SKIERESZ

Dave Murray, Arizona’s track coach, figured that Skieresz was headed for big things in 1997.

Skieresz, the former Agoura High standout in track and cross-country, proved her coach right.

First she won the 5,000 meters in the NCAA indoor track and field championships in Indianapolis in March.

Then over two days in early June in Bloomington, Ind., Skieresz dominated the long-distance races at the NCAA outdoor championships like no woman had done for more than a decade.

She easily won the 10,000 meters on June 6 and captured the 5,000 the next day, becoming the first woman to achieve the double victory since Midre Hamrin of Lamar in 1983.

Her victories also made her the first woman to win the NCAA cross-country title, the indoor 5,000 title and the outdoor 5,000 and 10,000 in the same school year.

Skieresz continued to shine during her junior cross-country season in the fall, extending her winning streak to 13 races. She was favored to win the NCAA championships in Greenville, S.C., in November, but Villanova junior Carrie Tollefson clocked 16:29 over the 5,000-meter course to upset runner-up Skieresz by 10 seconds.

Something tells us she’ll likely bounce back in 1998.

FERNANDO VARGAS

The former Olympian got in plenty of blows, some too low even by the ever-eroding standards of professional boxing.

Whether inside or outside the ring, Vargas was equally volcanic.

He won his pro debut in March, dispatching Mexican journeyman Jorge Morales in less than one minute in a welterweight bout at the Performing Arts Center in Oxnard, his hometown.

In October, boxer Tony Garcia, from Port Hueneme, claimed that Vargas picked a fight with him and his two brothers at a skating rink. Vargas denied the allegation.

Later that month, Vargas was arrested and charged with reckless driving for chasing his sister, Guadalupe, at speeds surpassing 55 mph through Oxnard streets after the two argued over the ownership of a car.

Last month, Vargas skirmished with former stablemate Carlos Martinez when the two crossed paths at La Colonia gym. Martinez needed nine stitches to close a gash on his nose. Both claimed the other threw the first punch.

Vargas, in his first fight as a junior middleweight, on Dec. 13 improved to 9-0 with a second-round knockout of Eduardo Martinez in Ledyard, Conn.

The flight home apparently went without incidents.

ERNIE BARNES

For several years, he has been one of the preeminent American artists dealing with sports and urban themes.

His paintings command lofty sums and hang in important galleries or in the homes of collectors, including Bill Cosby and Ethel Kennedy.

Barnes, an NFL player in the early 1960s, was preparing last December to mount a traveling exhibit. But a funny thing happened to Barnes on the way to New York, Chicago, Atlanta and the other cities on the tour.

He kept selling the work he was supposed to show.

“My representatives get upset with me,” Barnes said with a hearty laugh. “It’s hard to pass up $125,000.”

Barnes is hoping to get the exhibit off the ground in 1998, finally giving art lovers in those cities a chance to see the work he calls “visual points of the human experience, the day-to-day activities of all people.”

That is, of course, if he can hang on to his work.

“I’ve had a lot of commissions this year,” Barnes said.

MIKE TOLLIN and BRIAN ROBBINS

The duo, best known for producing the HBO series “Arli$$,” had another busy year in 1997.

In July, they released “Good Burger,” a comedy starring Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell of Nickelodeon fame as operators of a small fast-food place in danger of being put out of business by a larger competitor.

One trivia bit about the movie: There were 800 hamburgers cooked and 60 gallons of a “secret” sauce used. Robbins would not divulge the sauce’s ingredients.

In October, the North Hollywood-based team’s first of three “Sports Theater” specials produced for Nickelodeon aired.

The one-hour drama “First Time” centered on a fictitious 13-year-old African American in Brooklyn in 1947, who dreams of playing shortstop for the Dodgers.

The youngster’s dream is shattered when he learns there are no blacks in the major leagues, but it is restored when he meets Jackie Robinson.