Fann Hopes Weight Work Lifts CSUN’s Ground Game

Fear, most running backs would agree, can be one of the world’s great sources of motivation.

Someone once asked Tony Dorsett, then an All-Pro with the Dallas Cowboys, where he learned his repertoire of nifty moves.

“It’s nothing I learned,” he said flatly. “It’s what I do to survive.”

Albert Fann can relate to that statement.

The Cal State Northridge tailback spent much of the past two months locked in a weight room attempting to become bigger, stronger and faster than he was in earning All-Western Football Conference honors as a freshman last season. His primary inspiration: fear.

In Fann’s case, however, the emotion was not caused by visions of ill-tempered linebackers smashing him to the turf.

“I accomplished some things as a freshman,” he said. “I don’t want people saying that was a fluke. I don’t want there to be any sophomore jinx.”

Northridge, a Division II school, opens its summer camp today. And the Matadors cannot afford such a stroke of misfortune. The Matadors depend heavily upon their running game and last season Fann accounted for 822 of the team’s 2,002 rushing yards.

The former Cleveland High standout played at 6 feet, 2 inches and 200 pounds last season. He reports for his second season at 6-2 1/2, 223, most of which is distributed around his chest, shoulders and thighs.

Fann says he will retain the extra muscle by continuing to lift during the season, something he has not done in the past.

“I got worn down and beat up a little at the end of last year,” said Fann, who was held out of one game because of a thigh contusion. “I made a lot of rookie mistakes last season and not lifting was my biggest one. My body needs it.”

The conference’s biggest tailback as a freshman, Fann hopes to play between 215 and 220 pounds this season.

“I’ve been pushing weights just like last year,” he said, “but I’m more into it mentally. When it gets tough, when I’m on that last lift, that’s when I think about a championship and the yards I want to gain. I imagine my season.”

Fann has used the power of positive thinking to his advantage before.

“When I played basketball for Cleveland I’d stand at the free-throw line and watch the ball go into the basket before I shot,” he said. “In football, the night before the game I’d be in bed and I’d close my eyes and imagine the headlines in the papers. I’d try to picture the headline in my mind, ‘Fann Gets 243 Yards and Leads Team to Victory,’ or something like that. I try to do that before every game.”

Fann has never been one to mask his desire for individual acclaim. To do so, he says, would not be honest.

“I want the same things every tailback wants,” he said. Among them: to rush for 1,500 yards; score “about 13 touchdowns”; and to make the All-American team.

More than that, however, he would like to be called a national champion.

“My No. 1 goals are for the team,” Fann said. “I want everyone to be healthy, and, individual goals or not, I want a national championship.”

Northridge was 7-4 and placed second behind Portland State in the WFC last season, but Fann says he envisions a Division II playoff berth for the Matadors.