Fenwick Begins Building Familiar Staff

Football Coach Jim Fenwick stayed with coaches he is familiar with as he began to build his Cal State Northridge staff Thursday.

John Rosenberg, a former college head coach and pro assistant, will be the Matadors’ defensive coordinator. Rob Phenicie, from Fenwick’s staff at Valley College, will coach receivers.

Rosenberg was coach at Brown University from 1984-89. His teams were 21-16-2 in his first four seasons, but 2-17-1 in his last two.

Before coming to Brown, Rosenberg was secondary coach at Penn State for 11 seasons.

In addition, Rosenberg was an assistant with the USFL Philadelphia Stars for two seasons and spent the past two seasons coaching the Adler football club in Berlin.

Between those jobs, Rosenberg was an assistant at Valley for one season and served as a consultant to Fenwick for two others.

Phenicie spent the past four seasons with Fenwick at Valley, where he was the passing coordinator and receivers coach.

“Most of what we have done in the passing game is a credit to him,” Fenwick said.

Before coming to Valley, Phenicie was a graduate assistant for two seasons at UCLA and two seasons at Memphis, where he played tight end.

Fenwick said he hopes to hire one or two more full-time assistants within the next few weeks and an undetermined number of part-time or volunteer assistants.

Fenwick also said Jeff Kearin, who was Northridge’s offensive coordinator under former coach Dave Baldwin, will coach some part of the defense.