By snoadmin
COLUMBUS, Ohio – About half-way through the second half, the seats in the Nationwide Arena began changing colors. It was a bad sign – even if you didn’t look at the scoreboard.
The seats that were once filled with an assortment of shades from many teams turned back to their original blue. People were leaving the arena while the clock was still ticking and the cameras still rolling. The score was already spoken for, the game already called.
Long Beach State’s 121-86 loss to the Tennessee Volunteers was hard to watch toward the end, but it must’ve been even harder to play for the distraught team.
But even as the music came to a slow, painful stop, I couldn’t help but look up and become amazed at where we, the 49ers, had arrived.
This was no Gold Mine Gym. This wasn’t even a 5,000-seat big blue pyramid.
This was the Nationwide Arena, capacity 19,500, and this was 2,252 miles from LBSU.
We were on CBS. We were far from the southern beaches of our Golden State, something that became all too apparent with Columbus’ chilly 30-degree weather, flurries of snow and infamous White Castle restaurants lining the streets.
I’m no real basketball expert, but it isn’t hard to explain why we lost. Tennessee is used to fighting in a tougher conference and the 49ers lacked the home court advantage that they thrived on all season.
That isn’t to say that LBSU was alone, though. Thanks to the NCAA, the band and cheer squad got to experience a flirtation, albeit a brief one, with the Midwest. Small groups from LBSU came as well, including former CSULB President Robert Maxson and several students who ventured to make the long drive out. And, back on the home front, loyal fans gathered around to watch The Beach on national television.
What’s more, Long Beach managed to pick up a few short-term fans along the way in Ohio.
My job was to give out a few free Beach Patrol T-shirts and pompons to anyone willing. Amazingly, it wasn’t hard. In the small section of the arena that I first went to and asked, “Who wants to cheer for Long Beach?”, about a dozen people seemed more than willing to become a 49er for the day.
The guy who got my T-shirt first after grabbing it from my hands was Tyler Devoll of Westerville, Ohio.
“Other than the fact that I just gave you a free T-shirt, why Long Beach?” I asked him.
“They’re the underdogs. I cheer for the underdogs,” he replied. “And it seems like a cool school.”
And there was the meat of it.
Maybe we didn’t have the winning factor, but we had the “cool” factor, according to the Ohio State fan who likely had never even heard of Long Beach State before that day.
In retrospect, I guess we did seem “cool” in comparison. Our band wears Hawaiian shirts instead of geeky orange or yellow sweaters. Our mascot wields a pick-axe. And we come from Southern California, a land of legend, Hollywood and great weather even in December.
Plus, we have the word “beach” in our school’s name, a geographical feature overwhelmingly absent in most parts of Ohio.
After the game, however, attitudes changed. Some people told me they felt embarrassed to wear Long Beach State gear after we had been beaten so badly. As for me, I didn’t feel that way at all and promptly put on my Long Beach State sweater to help me battle the cold before heading out to dinner.
Perhaps the people who felt that way didn’t know that this appearance was Long Beach’s first in 12 years, and since I started coming to school here in 2003, the team has transformed itself from an athletic embarrassment to a source of Beach Pride.
So no matter what naysayers said after Friday’s ugly loss, LBSU earned its ticket to the Big Dance, and even though we may have tripped when it was our turn, we still made it.
We were there, and that’s more than a lot of schools can say.
Goodbye, Ohio. Hello again, Beach.
