Long Beach State has seen success in the past with sports like baseball, basketball and volleyball, pushing the school into the public eye during playoff runs.
But one of the United States’ most popular sports, football, CSULB no longer hosts.
From 1955 to 1991, CSULB had a football team. The university used the Veterans Memorial Stadium of Long Beach City College to play most of its games, as well as Angel Stadium from 1977 to 1982.
Throughout its existence though, the 49ers only won their conference three times. In their lone bowl, the 1970 Pasadena Bowl against the Louisville Cardinals, they ended in a tie.
Some students and alumni may ask if 49er football could ever return, but it’s best that it doesn’t.
While CSULB does have a club rugby team, the school doesn’t have many athletes that would be able to play college football. Recruiting would be difficult for a new program with little success in its history.
In the past few months, many colleges and universities have announced upgrades to their facilities that cost several hundreds of millions of dollars, and that doesn’t include maintenance costs, let alone the cost to build facilities in compliance with NCAA regulations.
If Long Beach were to reinstate the football program, it would have to compete against large schools in Southern California like UCLA and USC, a task that CSULB is not equipped to undertake.
Even if they were, there is no guarantee that the program would gain any traction.
It could wind up being a waste of money, money that could be better spent on other on-campus improvements. These might include upgrading the chargers on campus for electric cars, providing more affordable and accessible student housing and parking or implementing air conditioning into all of the campus buildings.
So while football might be one of the most popular sports in the US, it has no place at Long Beach State.