A week in the life of LBSU athletics had the 49er faithful all over the landscape, from Grand Prix rooftops with those nifty pigs in a blanket to the sands of volleyball, the dripped than dried Blair Field, the never wet women’s tennis and the easy riders on that 12 hour softball bus to UC Davis.
The baseball results have their own story this week (insert unlink…) so we will work our way around the rest of the sporting menu.
Men’s volleyball got some good news and some not so good news. The 3-0 loss to #1 USC was expected but the senior night salute was a 3-1 win over Pepperdine. Andy Read has continually been forced to shuffle stars and Saturday it fitting was a senior, Brad Hemmerling, who matched his career high with 17 kills against the Waves. The not so good news, well Northridge sort of went into the “tank you very much” mode which shuffled the seeds and BYU fell to number three and LB rose to number six bringing up a not exactly sought after air plane flight to the high altitude Cougars. Only silver lining, if you get BYU TV you can watch the show, but secret tip, turn down the sound the announcers are famously biased, aka, homers.
Beach softball (18-21, 6-3 Big West) had a great Saturday beating UC Davis, 4-2 and 3-0 but on Sunday the Aggies got a 3-1 win and made that long sail down the concrete sea (facing school on Monday) unhappy just missing the sweep.
Number 54 Women’s Tennis (14-5, 8-0 Big West) blasted Cal State Fullerton 7-0 behind Senior Anais Dallara who finished off conference play with an 8-0 record at No. 1 singles and passed Hannah Grady with her 94th singles win to become the all-time singles wins leader.
The newest LBSU sport is Sand Volleyball where Long Beach State was selected as one of four teams to compete for the first-ever Sand Volleyball National Championship, held April 27-29 in Gulf Shores, Ala. They got there by planning strong in the tourney on the Beach, with wins over Hawaii, LMU and USC.
Finally the report card showed good work for LBSU at the Big West Track and Field Challenge where the Men placed first (fifth-straight Big West Challenge team title–222 points) and the Women came in second. No rest for the thinclads, next is the Mt. SAC Relays, Thursday-Saturday, All Day.
In Walnut, CA hosting their own Beach Invitational, Friday-Saturday, All Day but held at Cerritos Collegesince the campus facility is still awaiting (since the days of the late Jack Rose) a remodel.
Almost Napkin Notes
Former Dirtbag Jake Thompson was unhappy in spring of 2011. “Everyone wanted to kill me,” Thompson said of the 255-pound heft he carried into his first spring training. “They were like, ‘Oh, boy. You’ve got to lose that’… “I was in what they call fat camp.” Things are better now. Starting his second full professional season, he’s already in Double-A. Another where are they–The Beijing smog made it so difficult for beach volleyball star Misty May-Treanor to breathe when she arrived for the 2008 Olympics that she wasn’t sure she would be able to compete. Today another commercial endorsement and a job helping out the “Ditch the Drip” campaign to fight nasal allergies…May-Treanor and partner Keri Walsh are in Brazil for the start of the international beach volleyball tour season. They are well on their way to qualifying for the Olympics in London, where the wet weather is expected to help those with allergies.
How difficult is it to break even on a bowl trip? Alabama played in the BCS championship game, traveled to a city within comfortable driving distance, played against a team from their own conference — meaning they got double their own share of the SEC’s BCS bowl payouts — and still lost almost $2 million on their victorious trip to New Orleans. Crimson Tide had spent upwards of $3.9 million on their BCS Championship game appearance while receiving a payout of around $1.95 million…much of those massive expenses are the cost of being Alabama. They include, for instance, more than $1 million in contract bonuses paid to Nick Saban and the rest of the Crimson Tide staff for making the national title game.
Jewels of the Night, Long Beach State’s annual food, dance and wine auction/festival/fundraiser for student-athlete scholarship is just around the calendar corner, set for Saturday, April 28 at the Walter Pyramid. The night includes elegant edibles from the top 25 restaurants, great wine and drinks, dancing and over 300 auction items for bidding. One of the biggest LBSU fundraisers each year the 2011 Jewels brought in more than $100,000. Tickets and info at 562-985-4662.
New Niner heading in is West Ranch’s J.C. Cloney (5-1, 1.26 ERA) and having an MVP-type season with three league wins, with the Long Beach State-bound senior batting .435 with two home runs and 13 RBIs. “Everything is going great. We’re 5-1 in league, so we’re happy about that,” Cloney said.
Last Add
Randy Tortorp, the Athletic Director at Long Beach City College made a tour stop at the Century Club last week and while the Viking ship travels under the radar they have a full set of issues just like LBSU the four, five or six year colleges in So Cal.
Randy’s is the new-ish AD at LBCC (while still serving as men’s volleyball coach) and he wisely brought along his academic boss, Dean Connie Sears. Connie is a fan of Randy on several fronts since he not only has had state champipnships but also his team won the academic award with a 3.26 GPA.
The Vikes and the other hundred plus community colleges of course are different than the D-1 schools in many ways–almost no tuition, no scholarships, but like their D-1 cousins a full menu of 18 sports and 384 athletes. And oh yes, coaches, boosters, and, ta-dah, parents. They hold fundraisers too; the next is the Hall of Champions Golf Tournament building on a successful Coaches vs. Cancer promotion, and similar events. Like LBSU they are on the hunt for corporate sponsors and are making some dollar headway.
The potential biggest funding source is a $28 per term ASB card that would be wildly successful if it wasn’t optional for the 29,000 students. It is optional so the Viking admins have to sell the idea every semester. The athletes come out of the Moore League and nearby towns and while they don’t get scholarship dollars per se they do get priority registration, good coaches, and academics solid enough to allow them to matriculate elsewhere after their two year programs are completed. Lastly add LBCC, their alums include a lot of local leaders and among the 25 folks at that Century Club affair, about half had studied at City and around five stepped up with a $1,000 gift to refurbish an outdate training and weight room under the stadium.
Nice work.