Long Beach State Football Coming Back?

Amid much prattle the campus of Long Beach State will not have a football team returning in a prompt manner and ultimately will not be ending a 15 year absence from college football. In the late 80's Long Beach State was facing the juncture of having to relinquish their football program because the wins were not piling up, which meant that the money made was less than adequate, once again proving the old cliché right that if it don't make dollars it don't make sense. The University was desperate for help and attempted to find a remedy to save its struggling program, in former Washington Redskins Coach George Allen. Allen was a proven winner and had the credentials to back it up. In fact, Allen had coached the Redskins to a Super Bowl. However, Allen could not duplicate his preceding success and the program suffered more than a dilapidated house with an average record of 3-9 the last four seasons of the university's program. With it came an end to the Cold War and a plethora of lucrative defense contracts that followed. Many of those contracts were in California, and contributed to a state tax base of $4 billion that gurgled down to the Cal State University system and, ultimately, to its athletic departments. According to former Senior Account Executive Casey Boggs, Long Beach State's athletic director at the time Dave O'Brien was told to disencumber nearly a million dollars from the budget in 1992. The options were to make cuts from every sport which would include salaries, equipment, recruiting, and operations. The other alternative was to cut one sport and leave the rest of the department alone. The football budget was at $1.3 million and Long Beach at the time was competing for the Southern California sports dollar against two major colleges, two NFL teams, two NBA teams, two pro baseball teams and an NHL team. The football team's attendance was around 4,000. "I do not realistically believe that football will ever come back at Long Beach State," said Long Beach State Media Relations Administrator Steve Janisch. "It would be a waste to try and come back at Division I-AA (smaller scholarship limits) because there is no money in that division and very little national publicity or interest and it needs to be done the right way or not at all." Many advocates of a resurrection of football at Long Beach State feel that it could potentially cause a great boon to the school. For example, bringing in large donors financially, especially if the team won and was selected in a bowl game. Benefits could include enormous publicity and get the school's name out in the national media eye. Schools associated with the Bowl Championship Series annually can conjure up revenues from network television contracts. According to the NCAA website the Pac 10 Conference schools made average $6 million each. A berth in the Rose Bowl is worth $13million distribution to the team's conference. "I'm not buying into all that it would cost this it would cost that crap", said alumnus Marc Yoshihara. "Long Beach is a gold mine for athletic talent especially with perennial powerhouse Poly High five minutes away." Opposers of a collegiate football return have documented that the school does not have a 25,000-plus seat stadium to play in (the minimum required by D1 standards). There would be a need for huge amounts of money over a long period of time to get the process of a stadium going. In addition, equipment and an entire football coaching staff would have to be brought in which means more money. Even if this was executed more trainers, academic support, compliance personnel, marketing personnel, and more sports information personnel would be needed. "Yes, there would be interest in the community, but would there be enough to fill a 25,000 seat stadium on a Saturday if a USC or UCLA were playing at home as well," said Janisch. "We would have to move to another conference since the Big West doesn't sponsor football and surviving as an independent is next to impossible unless you're Notre Dame." The hugest obstacle in the path of a return to collegiate football for Long beach is the Title IX gender equity regulations. The regulations stipulate that there must be a balance between your overall student population (55% women at CSULB) in regards to your athletic aid and participation. Many financial analyst and local sports writers believe that this is the reason why Long Beach State 49er football and other campuses through out California such as California State University, Fullerton (1992) Santa Clara University (1992), California State University, Hayward (1994), San Francisco State University (1995), University of the Pacific (1995), and ST. Mary's (2004) jettisoned their football programs and why they will remain extinct. For example, If Long Beach State adds 95 more males to athletics for football, then the university must either add money and scholarships and bodies to the women's side, or cut some men's sports to try and balance. Despite this blow to die hard football fans in the city of Long Beach and high school students who would yearn to play football at home if a football team was implemented, there remains optimism because some universities have been successful in putting a pulse back in football at their university such as Lincoln University of Missouri, who reinstated their football team in 1999 after a 20 year hiatus. "The reason it worked for us and continues to be successful now is because the students were very active in bringing it back," said 8 time NFL Pro Bowler and current defensive coordinator Lemar Parrish. Other universities that have followed suite include Edward Waters College (Florida) which watched its program dissipate in 1967 and reincarnated in 2001. After an immense gap of time of being supersede, the football programs at St. Augustine's (North Carolina), St. Paul's College (Virginia), Shaw University (North Carolina), Stillman College (Alabama) and Paul Quinn College (Texas) are once again in play. And the Central State University (Ohio) program, which was disbanded in 1996, joins the ranks of those to be reinstated later this year. Even though a football team is not on the priority list at Long Beach State, some in the sports department hierarchy could be swayed to reconsider their position on the matter since Onye Ibekwe, who played two seasons for the Long Beach State Men's Basketball team was given a two year contract a day after the NFL Draft in April by the San Francisco 49ers despite never playing a down of football in college.