When out on the road looking for success, the tender psyches of sporting women can be simultaneously confusing and confident.  Let’s start with confident and the weekend that was by Mauricio Ingrassia and Long Beach State soccer. A week after getting outscored 7-0 in the Bay Area (St. Mary’s and Cal), LBSU (now 6-3-1) traveled to Las Vegas and beat the host Lady Rebels 2-1 and then almost zipped Akron 4-1. From tender psyche to psycho, at least scoring-wise.

Back to the booters in a moment, but first we look in again at Brian Gimmillaros’ volleyball team who sized up their trip to Colorado as one big mountain and some little hills.  I agreed and predicted a 3-1 record with a loss to the host, nationally-ranked Colorado State.  The Virginia Commonwealth Rams went down as expected Friday morning, then came the shocking win over the CSU Rams.  While the traveling party celebrated (not saying the athletes did) I smelled a trap — hungry opponent, grueling match the night before, booster tour of micro breweries by Dansk, and then, whoops, a morning game against the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders. The first cloud on that horizon was perhaps the most dismal effort in many years; a 25-9 game two beat down by MTSU.  The Beach came back from two sets down to tie the match but in game five the 49ers just couldn’t get any traction.  (Insiders said that there was no partying by the team after the CSU match…just a late, five gamer, followed by an early wake-up and an hour-and-a-half bus ride to Denver.)

 With breakfast ball ruined, that left only the U of Denver on the schedule and the LBSU psyche got some salve with a 3-1 outcome.  The names were about the same, Lee at setter with some additional swing time available for Libby Fontanilla and Sarah Clause.  The hitting stats came as usual from Ledoux, Johnson and Hampton but the underground still is rumbling about who should be the quarterback, 17-year-old Puerto Rican Ashley Vazquez — green as an island mango — or senior system specialist Ashley Lee. The answer may come on the final road trip of the month Friday as 9-3 Long Beach goes up the hill to LMU and then the Big West opener with confident (and chippy) Cal State Fullerton on Saturday back in the Pyramid.

Perhaps the difference in this week’s disposition of the soccer set versus the volleyball team could be explained by the fact that soccer teams in a tourney get a day off between matches (to either recover from their angst or recover from their elation.)  That might have helped volleyball but such is life. Soccer is also back at home facing Arizona State of the PAC-10 Friday at 4:00pm allowing the hard core 49er faithful to miss the traffic and still get to Westchester for volleyball around 7:00pm.

BONUS DUST–Another barometer of the popularity of the new LBSU SRWC is the fact that administrators are not only having to sort out the crowds that don’t want to leave at the midnight closing time but also dealing with a block of international students.  The campus planners thought foreign students would never want to go to a “gym” and accordingly decided to exempt them from the $116 a semester fee. Whoops, these kids love the facility (many don’t have cars on campus). In reflection, that group would benefit as much from the SRWC as traditional natives. The bonus for both parties is an improved understanding of each other and the likelihood that the foreign scholars would carry their favorable LBSU impressions literally around the world.
 
Mad Money Report — I know that at least the LBSU staff loves money talk, so to keep them reading here are today’s dollar signs. Now when I came to the University in 1975 my Dean Tom Dean hit me up for the big gift to athletics, it was $49. Used to tossing around twenty dollar bills, I remember saying at the time that I am glad the team wasn’t named the 76ers.  Now the basic entry for the Directors’ Circle has gone from $495 to $750 to $1500.

In today’s economy that amount of course is the equivalent of the change you pull from your sofa when the pizza guy comes. For a big player on the funding front, take a right turn and go to Happy Valley where Penn State decided to start college hockey. After years of wishes, rumors and speculation, university trustees announced Friday the establishment of D-1 program for men’s and women’s ice hockey, starting in the 2012-13 season. The benefactors are oil rich folks and hockey fans Terry and Kim Pegula who donated $88 million — the largest private gift in Penn State history. The money will finance a new multipurpose arena and some operating support. Pegula is the founder and former president of the energy company East Resources Inc. that was sold to Royal Dutch Shell for $4.7 billion earlier this year. Find that under your sofa cushions.