By Editor’s Note: This article is part of 49er Favorites, a series showcasing stories from the Daily 49er’s archives.
The official mascot of Cal State Long Beach has taken many different forms. In the early years of the campus, a donkey named Nugget represented the school. A sculpture on upper campus shows a more serious version of Prospector Pete than we have today. (For more on Prospector Pete, click here). If one Associated Students senator had gotten his way, however, you could be reading a copy of the Daily Lobster or buying your texbooks from Lobster Shops Inc.
In the late 1980s, we reported on the failed move to change CSULB’s mascot from a 49er to a lobster. The motion before the Associated Students senate was quashed in a 10-2 vote. To the right are scanned images of the article from a March 1987 weekend edition of the Daily Forty-Niner.
Here’s a choice quote from a student reacting to the suggested change:
“‘I think a sea creature would have been good, Pacific Ocean and all, but I don’t know about a lobster. They get eaten too much. That may say something about a failure,’ marketing major Andrew Del Ray said, adding that a dolphin might be more appropriate.”
In the end, it wouldn’t have mattered much whether or not the A.S. Senate had approved “The Lobster Initiative”, as the change would only apply A.S. activities and not the official mascot. Here’s the full text of the article, available in its original form on the right:
Lobster:Great with steak, but not as a Mascot
By Gina M. Farrell, Forty-Niner Staff Writer
Cal State Long Beach fans might have been cheering for a clawed crustacean and donning T-shirts with antennae for eternity.
But Enough crustacean lovers just couldn’t be netted to support Associated Students Sen. Gerald Lokstadt’s proposal to change the Cal State Long Beach mascot from a 49er to a lobster.
The A.S. Senate voted down The Lobster Initiative 10-2 at its Wednesday meeting. The proposal’s passage would not have changed the CSULB mascot, but only the mascot for organizations and activities receiving A.S. funds.
Part of the problem arose from the cruel fact that the temptation to land the mascot on a cafeteria plate might prove too overwhelming, as one student suggested.
“I think a sea creautre would have been good, Pacific Ocean and all, but I don’t know about a lobster. They get eaten too much. That may say something about failure,” marketing major Andrew Del Rey said, adding that a dolphin might be more appropriate.
Although Lokstadt acknowledged that the A.S. “can’t tell (President Stephen) Horn, ‘We’re the Long Beach Lobsters now,'” he said the proposal would have shown A.S. support for changing the mascot eventually.
The Social and Behavioral Sciences senator said he wanted to get the issue on this year’s runoff election ballot. It would have required all A.S.-sponsored teams and organizations to use “a lobster, literally or in representation, where issues of the mascot of Cal State Long Beach come up.”
“I think it’s kind of silly,” Business Sen. Don MacKenzie said. “It would really not help school unity to have half our teams known as lobsters and half as 49ers.”
Most students and senators alike took a lighter view of the whole proposal.
“Personally, I wouldn’t want to come to campus and pick up a copy of the Daily Lobster, or have to go to meetings of the Lobster Shops (Inc.),” Engineering Sen. Walid Gamaleldin said.
“I like it as a 49er,” criminal justice major Vincent Jefferson said. “It sounds better with Long Beach (and) it’s traditional. Lobster just doesn’t have a ring to it.”
Accounting major Wendy Grabill agreed. “I think the lobster is ridiculous. We’re established as the 49ers, and we should keep it that way,” she said.”
