{"id":5868,"date":"2008-04-03T07:03:12","date_gmt":"2008-04-03T07:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/sports\/mike-across-america-pit-stop-2-stanford\/"},"modified":"2008-04-03T07:03:12","modified_gmt":"2008-04-03T07:03:12","slug":"mike-across-america-pit-stop-2-stanford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/mike-across-america-pit-stop-2-stanford","title":{"rendered":"Mike Across America Pit Stop 2: Stanford!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div style='float:left;padding-right:10px;padding-bottom:5px;'><img src='images\/archive\/sports\/photo3377.jpg' align='left' \/><\/div>\n<p>         For six years now, I&#8217;ve gone on about what a great deal CSULB is, with solid academics, great athletics, and a price that can&#8217;t be beat.&nbsp; I&#8217;ve derided those who&#8217;ve gone fifty grand into debt to go to a more prestigious school, and been proud of Long Beach State&#8217;s mid-major status.&nbsp; But really, it was the price tag: yes, we didn&#8217;t have all the flash of a bigger school, but when you can get a degree without going into debt, what does any of that matter?&nbsp; Then yesterday I saw Stanford.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/s66.photobucket.com\/albums\/h263\/Zoomy575M\/?action=view&amp;current=Stanford2.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><br \/><img decoding=\"async\" style='clear:left;' align='left' vspace='5' hspace='10'  src=\"http:\/\/i66.photobucket.com\/albums\/h263\/Zoomy575M\/Stanford2.jpg\" alt=\"Photobucket\" border=\"0\"   \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It has the beauty of a UCLA or Berkeley, with the well-funded athletics complexes of a USC.&nbsp; The football stadium was unbelievable, probably three or four full tiers above Qualcomm, with tons of seating and a well-sculpted exterior that even includes the school&#8217;s logo.&nbsp; Holy crap!&nbsp; It was a fun day to be there, too, since the previous night the Stanford women&#8217;s basketball team had advanced to the Final Four, and the whole campus was wearing its colors and jerseys in support.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/s66.photobucket.com\/albums\/h263\/Zoomy575M\/?action=view&amp;current=Stanford.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><br \/><img decoding=\"async\" style='clear:left;' align='left' vspace='5' hspace='10'  src=\"http:\/\/i66.photobucket.com\/albums\/h263\/Zoomy575M\/Stanford.jpg\" alt=\"Photobucket\" border=\"0\"   \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The quality of athletic arenas extended into the surrounding community, another added benefit of so much money flowing around.&nbsp; Just a block away, while we were enjoying lunch, we noticed this deluxe artificial surface multi-purpose athletic playing field, known in Long Beach as a park.&nbsp; The locals didn&#8217;t seem to mind enduring a few skinned knees and elbows on the turf in exchange for free access to such high-quality open areas.&nbsp; I guess next time CSULB proposes a fee hike, I&#8217;ll leave my picket sign at home; the rec center will be a nice start, but maybe thirty years down the road we&#8217;ll get to take in Prospector Pete engraved 6 stories up, the way he deserves to be seen.<\/p>\n<p>          <a href=\"http:\/\/s66.photobucket.com\/albums\/h263\/Zoomy575M\/?action=view&amp;current=Stanford4.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><br \/><img decoding=\"async\" style='clear:left;' align='left' vspace='5' hspace='10'  src=\"http:\/\/i66.photobucket.com\/albums\/h263\/Zoomy575M\/Stanford4.jpg\" alt=\"Photobucket\" border=\"0\"   \/><\/a><\/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-5868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5868","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=5868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5868\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5868"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5868"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}