While the Beach sporting entries were cramming games in around finals and cramming sneakers in their suitcases, I did the same, but long distance from my back up location deep in the heart of sunny Florida.
Next up are some important basketball games and of course the start of what might well be a great men’s volleyball season. First the hoops. Men’s Basketball is at No. 25 Missouri (on the telly via Fox Sports Net) Saturday, 2PM, in Columbia, Mo. The ladies of hoop are at home to play Denver Sunday, 2 p.m., in the Pyramid while Alan Knipe, ranked as high as fourth nationally, plays in the volleyball at the UCSB Asics Invitational Friday-Saturday, All Day, in Santa Barbara. Some times the coach plays everybody and loses a game or two but some times (wink, wink we hope this year) he puts his top seven out there most of the time.
The volleyball boosters also are supporting the Randy Sandefur Memorial Golf Tournament benefiting theLong Beach State their program on Monday, February 3, 2014 at SeaCliff Country Club in Huntington Beach. Former players, with former and current Olympians will be there you can save a space at (562) 985-4550.
MVB also offers Courtside seating for all Men’s Volleyball in a cushioned seat in reserved Row A, for the 13 home games. It is one sport where you had better keep your head off because balls and players tend to fly about in that area quite a bit.
Same heads up advice for games in the Blair Field Pavilion which will be open for Dirtbag games during the upcoming season. Those right handed hitters are known to zip some horsehide in the direction of inobservant fans.
More basketball notes you likely already have include the info that ESPN and the Big West Conference have announced that the first “Wild Card” game of the television package between the partners will involve Long Beach State, as the January 16 game between the Monson kids and UC Santa Barbara (a showdown with the leagues newest star, Tyler Lamb and the remarkable Gaucho Big Al Williams. The game will be shown live on ESPNU at 8PM.
DUSTING OLD STORY LINES–The hot new hand for the men of baskets is indeed Tyler Lamb but the old hot hand is clearly Mike Caffey who scored 26 points, including a game-tying three at the end of regulation to lead the 49ers to their first road win of the season, defeating Nevada 80-77. With the victory, Long BeachState extended its winning streak to three games. Lamb added 17 points, and Branford Jones added nine on perfect shooting from the field along with five assists and no turnovers. LBSU (4-9) gave up just nine turnovers offset with 10 steals and 16 assists.
Now to the carousel of NFL coaches reserving moving vans. One of my favorite NFL coaching memories was the year or so I overlapped with the late and really great George Allen. I was in a small LBSU insiders group when George first arrived on campus and was asking about returning players and the needs the 49ers would have that season. It was hard to break the news to the Coach that there wasn’t a waiver wire for NCAA athletes.
George coached just one season at the Beach, 1990, and in no particular order–got a Gatorade shower after his last game and would die of pneumonia on New Year’s Eve of that same year. The meeting had guys like Bob Donlan and the AD those days Corey Johnson. I knew Corey from his days as an assistant at my alma mater, Miami, and when he arrived in town he opened his trunk one day and gave me a lot of Miami gear, including his Hurricane golf bag.
Johnson spent four years at The Beach and was pretty good. He got facility improvements in track, the baseball field, tennis courts and the expansion of the weight room. He took over a budget awash in red ink and increased the department’s fundraising and a foundation membership of over 1200. His top hire, Coach Allen in the summer of 1990. During Corey J’s tenure, the 49ers won its first NCAA Championship in women’s volleyball, appeared in its first College Baseball World Series, both in 1989, men’s volleyball won an NCAA title in 1991 and facing a 20-percent state cut in March, Johnson made the tough choice and dropped men’s and women’s swimming, men’s tennis and men’s golf. Golf survived with a last-minute push in June
As a coach, Allen was known for his tendency to prefer veteran players to rookies and younger players with his “Over the Hill Gang,” Billy Kilmer, Jack Pardee, Richie Petitbon, Myron Pottios, John Wilbur,George Burman, and Diron Talbert among others.
Veteran 49er PA Voice of the Beach, Dan Smith, said that he especially remembered the welcome dinner for George that attracted a Hollywood A list of sports celebs including TV guy Roy Firestone and former player and movie star Deacon Jones. And the collection plate was full.
CLOSING QUOTES: We finish today with some Diamond material we have laboriously mined while floating coast to coast for my holiday Florida stay. Nobody has posted a box score but both USC and Long Beach played a baseball scrimmage that Long Beach won 4-3, at least in the first nine innings. By coach’s agreement, the teams played some more frames with the idea of testing their young charges in “situational baseball”. (The Trojans and Dirtbags played a total of 14 innings). After falling down 1-0 in the bottom of the second, the Trojans scored in the top of the third to tie things up but Buck and his Beach boys scrapped their way to small ball runs and used an assortment of arms including good work by Josh Frye, Ryan Millison and Ty Provencher to keep the Boys of Troy at bay. The hits and steals and the like came from a variety of folk with some key returnees, Ino Patron, Michael Hill and Richard Prigatano, leading the way.
The game was a taut and up and down affair, as USC got a 2-1 lead in the top of the fourth but then the Niners took a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the sixth after they plated two runs. In the top of the eighth the Trojans tied things and the Beach scrambled for the win in the bottom of the eighth and the pen survived a Trojan attack in the top of the ninth.
Next up on the D-Bag calendar is the 12th Annual Alumni Weekend Jan. 23-25, 2014. The team spokespeople, Roger Kirk and Katie Tuller, note that the weekend includes the “Dirtbags’ Lead Off Dinner, a golf tournament and the Alumni Game. The weekend’s events begin with the Lead Off Dinner on Thursday, Jan. 23 at 6PM All Dirtbag supporters are invited out to Walter Pyramid to meet the 2014 Dirtbags. On Friday at 11AM, the Dirtbags will host their annual golf tournament at Recreation Golf Course behind Blair Field. Alumni of the Dirtbags’ program will take the field at Blair Field on Sunday at 11AM followed by an Intrasquad scrimmage from the Dirtbags at 2PM
Both the alumni game and the scrimmage will be open to the public and admission will be free. There is an entry fee into the golf tournament (lunch provided on the course) as well as opportunity drawings and an award dinner following the event. Tickets to the Lead Off Dinner are $75 per person. Ms. Tuller is the sign up person for all baseball events. Call her at (562) 985-7976. Make that your first new year’s resolution.—DR. DAN