We don’t often write editorials on this site—it’s not as fun, usually, as actually reporting a story, getting out, talking to people.  But I was struck yesterday by what seemed like an important moment, and there’s nothing particularly journalistic about it.

Things are changing at Long Beach State—and they’re starting to change quickly.  Last week, Ryan ZumMallen, a writer of ours and the managing editor of the POST’s news site, forwarded me this pic of the Monson Maniacs, and asked, “Remember when we were students, how we’d have to kick people out of the student section for not standing up? Things have changed.”  Standing in an absolutely packed Legends bar, watching Long Beach State go toe-to-toe with no. 3 Kentucky, it would be hard to disagree with him.

Obviously, things are changing on the court—you can read about that every day on this site.  What has fascinated me, though, is how quickly things are changing off it.  Students are coming to games, they’re wearing Beach gear, and they’re knowledgeable.  When I was a freshman at Long Beach State in the Fall of 2002, nobody—and I mean nobody—wore logo’d apparel from our school.  It was all UCI, UCLA, and USC—now, I see high school kids at games we’re covering wearing LBSU clothing.

At Legends, where there literally wasn’t room to sit, either on the floor or in the skybox, the feeling was the same.  People kept coming up to me, marveling at the turnout to watch a 49er game on a Wednesday morning, marveling that the team was rewarding that turnout, and using that word, over and over: “Change.”

I don’t want to overinflate the moment here, but you could feel it in the bar—and I think you can feel it in the Pyramid this year, too.  Granted (and this is the Long Beach native in me), it could all fall apart.  Monson could get hired away by a bigger-buck school (don’t believe it), the team could lose its chemistry, and the momentum could stall.  This is Long Beach, these things happen.  And there is certainly a long, long way to go before Long Beach State catches up with the history and the passion surrounding other collegiate programs (or heck, even local high school programs, with Poly, Wilson, and Jordan all opening their doors decades before the university did).

You needed look no further than the Rupp Arena, long after the game had ended, when thousands of students remained to listen to a radio broadcast of an interview with John Calipair.  It’s hard to imagine more than a few handfuls of diehard Maniacs waiting to hear a similar interview with their eponymous Monson—but two years ago, there wouldn’t have been even those handfuls, and there sure wouldn’t have been a standing-room only crowd at Legends at 10am on a weekday.  No, those are new developments—like the 49ers hanging with a national powerhouse.  But more and more, it’s feeling like these aren’t just seasonal changes—instead, it feels like they’re pointing in a direction.  Namely, up.