<\/div>\nAnd then there was home. Sweet, familiar, understandable, beautiful Long Beach, where the streets make sense to me and I don’t have to search for a place to sleep every night. Where I know the names and faces of all the local athletes, and where I can drop by a friend’s place, instead of having them answer the phone, “What state are you in right now?” Where I can sit on my couch, watch my television, and record my podcast with my favorite co-hosts. Home!<\/p>\n
Yes, after 11,374 miles, we were ready to be home. There were so many unbelievable things we got to see and do on the trip, but the happiest day was almost definitely the day that ended on our porch. Yes, there are things I’ll miss: the freedom; watching sports on the east coast without having to do time zone math (and the joy of live Lakers basketball at midnight); getting to see in person so many places I’d only seen on television or in movies. And the trip has had a lasting impact on me as a writer and a sports fan too. For one thing, it’s been cool in the last week to watch Celtics games and recognize all the Boston landmarks they show in between commercials, and I imagine that, since we visited so many cities, this will continue. But by far the best thing is that, because of our incredible experience in Atlanta with the Hawks fans, every time I see a game, in any sport in any city, it’s going to be impossible for me not to also think about the crowd as a vital element in the game. Not just for how much noise they are or aren’t making, but for the emotional support they provide, the character they help give their team, and that their team helps lend them.<\/p>\n
Probably the most valuable thing I gained from the seven week trip, however (at least in respect to this site), was a more full understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of my native Long Beach, which I’ve been lucky enough to reside in for 24 years now. Its strengths: an unbelievable infrastructure of amazing parks to facilitate youth sports; a strong system of prep sports at a number of competitive schools; a young and rapidly galvanizing college culture as CSULB sports continue to improve under F. King and Vic Cegles. The weaknesses: an apathetic public attitude, and lack of pride in the city; no major pro team to be the hub for all these spokes, and no venue to attract such a team. There is also the question of media, as the Press-Telegram<\/span>, Long Beach’s oldest news source, is obviously on the downslope, in sports coverage as well as city reporting. <\/p>\n Fortunately, this is the one thing I have some kind of control over. I’m so glad to be home, and so fired up to get going with this website. It won’t be 11,000 miles, but it should be a hell of a journey. I hope you’ll make it with me. Hey, you’ve come this far, right?<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5698"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5698"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}