As reported yesterday evening by Yahoo! Rivals’ Kendall Rogers, Long Beach State has lost its pitching coach, Jon Strauss, to Pepperdine.  Strauss’ move could be seen as surprising since he’s what seemed to be a lifetime LB guy, the bread and butter of the university’s assistant ranks—ex-player, lives in the community, passionate about the school. 

Strauss is a former Dirtbag who played on the 1993 CWS team, then worked for the ‘Bags from 1995-2000, before leaving to coach Glendale Community College (he attended Glendale High), and to serve from 2003-2005 as the pitching and recruiting coordinator for Loyola-Marymount.  After that he returned to Long Beach, and was promoted to pitching coach this January after Troy Buckley left for the Pirates’ minor league pitching coordinator job.

Rogers expressed confusion, saying, “[The move] is a little surprising to me.  Strauss is a Long Beach State guy and it’s always tough to leave the school you love so much…He currently lives in Long Beach and will make the commute to Malibu each day.”

So it raises the question: Why did Strauss leave?  The most obvious culprit is the recent budget cuts suffered state-wide by the CSU system.  When you’ve read about those cuts, their sports impact may have escaped you, but remember: Assistants and coaches are CSU employees too, and those furloughs are going to hit their ranks hard.  Coaches perhaps are making enough to absorb the pay cut (furloughs will be for two days a month, or up to 10% of an employee’s salary), but if you’re an assistant coach, that could be a ton of money.  All of a sudden, loyalty might have to take a backseat to a well-funded private school with more stability, and a brighter economic outlook than it unfortunately seems the CSU system is facing.

For Strauss’ school bio, click here.