Men’s head volleyball coach Alan Knipe remembers what Long Beach State was like as a student in 1991 before the Walter Pyramid was built and the change in recruiting as a result.
On Tuesday night, Knipe said he can see a similar change happen with the women’s soccer team if the Beach Legacy Referendum passes in March.
Part of the BLR includes a 3,000- to 5,000-seat stadium, which would double as a track facility, including lights and three synthetic grass turf fields to allow for intramural and club sports, as well. An estimated cost of the facility has yet to be determined. The vote will be conducted online on March 11 and 12.
“[Head coach Mauricio Ingrassia] and I have very similar paths,” Knipe said to a crowd of 20 at the Pyramid Annex Conference Center. “He is doing everything he possibly can.
“[The Pyramid] was instant credibility for [the volleyball team].”
Knipe alluded to the man the women’s soccer field is named after to show where he felt Ingrassia’s program is on the pecking order.
“George Allen is our old football coach. That shows where our priority is with women’s soccer,” he said.
Despite qualifying for the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history and winning the Big West Conference regular season title for an unprecedented third straight season, the women’s soccer team averaged just 344 fans per home game last season at George Allen Field.
David Benedict, the senior associate athletics director for external relations, attributed the low attendance figures to the time of day LBSU played.
This past season, the 49ers played two home games starting at 1 p.m., two at 4:30 p.m., two at 3 p.m., two at 2 p.m. and four at noon. Against opponents on the road, LBSU started a game against Utah at 7:30 p.m. mountain time, against Arizona at 7 p.m., against UC Riverside at 7 p.m., against Cal State Fullerton at 6 p.m. and against UC Santa Barbara at 7 p.m. The ‘Niners also started at 8 p.m. against the University of San Diego at UCLA’s Drake Stadium in their first-round NCAA match-up.
“Not having lights is a big disadvantage. The ability to play a night match would be huge,” Ingrassia said in regards to being able to recruit and host NCAA Tournament games.
Benedict said the school would like to bring NCAA Tournament games to the campus in the future.
“We can’t even place a bid [to host],” he said.
Wayne Stickney, the 49er Athletic Club development coordinator, said the proposed stadium would occupy one of two locations: where George Allen Field or the Jack Rose Track currently exists.
“There are basically two existing green spaces for recreation, practice, etc. George Allen and the large, non-conforming space where the rugby team, club soccer and other groups practice and play,” Stickney said in an e-mail. “The synthetic turf grass fields would most likely occupy one or partially parts of both of these spaces.”
The playing surface at George Allen Field compared to Drake Stadium is slightly narrower. LBSU’s home field is 75 by 115 yards, as opposed to UCLA’s 75 by 120-yard surface. Ingrassia said the 49ers’ is a good size and the dimensions likely wouldn’t change.
Ingrassia added that with the current funds, he spends about “30 to 40 percent” of his time on fundraising.
Knipe said the BLR would help his team, as well as the others on campus, compete for national championships.
“We just can’t compete. I feel [the days of competing in the Big West] will come to an end,” said Knipe, whose team advanced to the Final Four last season.
Knipe also said the BLR could help turn LBSU into less of a commuter campus, which he added would be beneficial to all students.
“To change the culture … just think about the livelihood on campus non-stop,” he said. “It would feel collegiate and not like Long Beach City College. I feel it’s an unpolished diamond.”
idk JR Salazar. latination is intimidating me to vote no because i’m afraid he’s going to slander me by calling me a racist. i think others will vote no because of this.
Putting all of the racist garbage aside, I think administration deliberately let George Allen field fall into disrepair exactly to push this referendum. This wasn’t started by student athletes, it was started by the King. I agree the grass can be maintained cheaper. They can put in night lights for soccer (much cheaper than what they’re asking). Can some of the men’s sports that nobody but the players care about, like rugby and Ultimate Frisbee (definitely large crowd attractions), spend a few hundred grand on rowing equipment for women and, bingo, Title IX is satisfactory. Sports is diversion, entertainment. Our fees should be focused on academic programs. Why not let athletics keep the $1.6 mill and have the referendum give the $5.3 million to educational scholarships, classroom improvements, enhanced technology, or a laundry list of other things that are being cut by the state? Because that would make to much sense, I suppose.
Well, you lot are sure steaming over bigotry this and racist that. I can’t help but laugh at the jibjabbery on this comments section.
By the way, I am putting even money on the referendum passing. With flying colors.
What say the rest of you?
Does anybody doubt that there are klansmen and other white supremacists on CSULB’s campus? I sure don’t.
not only do I want to exclude your family, I want to deport them. If you bring in race, that it seems all minorities do these days, it will backfire, because whites are getting tired of your manipulative stories. Go back to the 60’s 70’s 80’s or 90’s for that matter. It’s over give it up. White guilt has ended.
Will Smith – highest paid actor is a minority
Oprah Winfrey – highest paid woman is a minority
Michael Jordan – most beloved athlete is a minority
Barack Obama – most powerful man in the WORLD is a minority
White people are sick of it. Quit making excuses for your races inferiority complex!
I’m afraid latination’s going to slander me as a racist, so i’m voting no. I’m terrified by the almighty race card.
you racists are off the hook, man. we all have a right to a public education. it’s public, not ‘pubic’ you morons. i’m voting no just because you want to exclude my family.
you racists are off the hook, man. we all have a right to a public education. it’s public, not ‘pubic’ you morons. i’m voting no just because you want to exclude my family.
We’re going to pass the BLR because it’s important to take back The Beach!!! This started as a white campus and should be returned to being a white campus. None of these brownies are from this area, but they feel entitled to define what the complexion should be. Vote “yes” because it’s white and it’s right.
Knipe and Cegles have it right. Let’s turn this back into a majority white campus and support moneymakers like SPORTS. We all know athletics pays for academics anyway, and it only gets done with white people cash!!!! End of story. Dump the freeloaders and let them all pay their fair share. Baseball and football are American sports and if we need to pay for soccer to make them important, dump the border jumpers.
It’s just a sleight of hand to bring back football, RAH. We’re counting on the fact that wetbacks love futbol to pass this so we can bring back football, the REAL AMERICAN SPORT, YO. Next up, a new bisbol diamond, YEAH!!!!
I’m white and if this referendum doesn’t pass i will be suing. How could this U. deprive me and all my white friends a place to play our white sports. This U. is racist and all minorities are to if the vote nu. Espacially Taco Nation.
Vote Yes on BLR!!! Some of you idiots against it are losers with low self esteem. If the BLR passes this will help you in these areas. Show some pride you lazy, race baiting bigots.
Vote Yes on BLR!!! Some of you idiots against it are losers with low self esteem. If the BLR passes this will help you in these areas. Show some pride you lazy, race baiting bigots.
If you wanna ‘shape it into a diamond’, then pay your own money. I care about this campus, but it isn’t fair that Athletics benefit while others suffer.
My roommate and I are both disabled students at CSULB living on extremely fixed incomes. It will be extremely hard for us to survive with the new recreation fees. We’re barely making it as it is. If we have to pay more for the athletics program, both of us will probably have to drop out next fall. How is that fair?
oh and i made a mistake in posting dr. king’s name alongside the likes of latination and sharpton.
you mean, mean racists! how dare you vote yes on the blr. latination is a true civil rights pioneer in the same vein as mlk and malcolm x. you mean, mean racists holding the minority students down. wahhhhh!!! not to mention that white ppl arent the only ones who like to hang out at the beach, but still. if i play the race card enough, somebody might actually believe the garbage that comes out of my mouth. if you vote yes on the blr, you are a racist just like the kkk. (sniifle, sniffle). latination = al sharpton = mlk
I forgot “Mauricio Ingrassia” in my previous post. He had an undefeated at home #1in the nation women’s soccer team on a field that’s still much worse than CSULB’s before coming to the Beach. At least that’s what the PR team wrote on csulb.edu when he was hired.
Didn’t make Long Beach City College’s women’s soccer team a national highlight on a sloppy grass field? Undefeated on rodeo turf? Those were his creds when we hired him.
Knipe’s own statement inadvertently describes institutional racism: “To change the culture…” Outside of ethnic studies and the large number of Asian professors, how many teachers of color are there in the sciences, education, engineering, etc.? Now that would be a useful referendum; hiring more Latino and black professors to mentor students of color with a more diverse representation that aligns with the student diversity. Any money sucked from a student body during a recession should be used only to increase their chances for academic success; something they will need to survive in the big cruel world beyond college. Rugby doesn’t seem to meet that criteria.
Michael Yee is 100 % correct. Racism is not the overt name calling and hostility that the KKK and others practice. That’s ‘bigotry’. Racism only exists when one racial/ethnic majority creates sociological or political policies that impact, oppress and/or restrict a minority of a different race/ethnicity. Institutional racism is something you can only see by knowing what the results of a particular policy are intended to create. For CSULB it’s first in the public relations of “Go Beach” which is clearly intended to bring more white people for fun in the sun and to work on their tans, something most people of color are disinterested in. Once you’ve lured all of the blond hair, blue eyed jocks to The Beach, you create systems of oppression that are less obvious, like the types of athletics programs this investment will proliferate, i.e. rugby, frisbee, rowing, etc. ‘Including’ minorities is a red herring for a larger scheme of eventually reducing minority enrollment. The overall strategy has been quite effective. Make one small group [Latinos like soccer] think they are part of the grand scheme in order to ally them against another smaller group [blacks aren’t that into soccer]. Once you’ve chased off the one group, turn your focus the former ally. But first you must have an institutional policy that controls the money [neither Latinos or blacks] It worked against Indians, Chinese, Mexicans, former slaves, etc. Vote no on BLR, it’s too much of a BLuR.
Racism is not simply expressed by being unfriendly or calling people racial remarks. There are other ways things can be racist. Say, if there were more whites than any other ethnicity in athletics, voting for an increased athletics fee would be racist as they would get more funding than other organizations on campus. I have no idea of the stats, just pointing out how something can be racist other than in the obvious n-word and c-word and w-word slurs.
For all the people accusing CSULB of being a racist college, as an exchange student myself, I have not experienced or seen any degree of racism at this school at all. REally I have seen the opposite. People here are friendly and openminded. And this school is extremely diverse. How can someone honestly say such things?
if you vote for the blr, you are a racist! you are a racist elitist ‘vote yes on blr’.
Yo Knipe “We just can’t compete. I feel [the days of competing in the Big West] will come to an end”? It can’t come soon enough for me. I thought it took a team to compete, not artificial turf. What ever happened to home field advantage? Know the slop and use it to your ‘advantage’ Many great college programs seem to be extremely successful without new palaces. Having a pretty stadium doesn’t make a championship team. Wearing a pretty dress doesn’t make Miss America either.
Oh Jason, you probably will be a senator or congressman one day. I don’t think any of them spent much time with books when they were in college EITHER. Buy a dictionary and take an English class.
If the city will have a monetary gain, why doesn’t the city make a money investment? This is only being sold to gullible students thats are not mature enough to be responsible to future students and their familys. Tuitions are going up, the state is raise a bunch of taxes, unemployment is off the hook, people are losing their homes, and athletes wants to build a soccer stadium. What’s wrong with this equation? Will this be like youth soccer where everybody gets a trophy? Football would be a better investment and would cost less, according to the great campus leader Jason Aula.
the only evidence ‘vote yes on BLR’ has is some cheap shots against ethnicity, tired administrative vomit like “csulb’s fees are relatively cheap,” chastise alumni and demean the very successful athletics programs that we are proud of. not making a good reason for me to vote yes, idiot. there’s many reasons “our alumni donation rate is a joke” including an economic crisis, a city that didn’t even want to chip in for lights to protect women and, most of all, dumb asses like ‘vote yes on BLR’ it’s apparent that the community of long beach doesn’t want to ‘develop a connection with the school’ or it would have earlier in our 60 year history, ya think?
Stop acting like athletics is the cure all for what ails this university. @36,000 students attend and only an extremely small fraction come here because of athletics programs, even though the history of CSULB is laced with great programs. The school has been around for 60 years. If alumnus and the community haven’t jumped on board yet, it’s hardly likely women’s soccer will be the magic pill. It would spread the cost out and alums and the community would certainly be able to afford it more than students economically struggling to make it to graduation. Vote NO on BLR (Big Lies Regurgitated). These are the same false promotions used to start Beach Pride, the Wellness Center, parking structures, etc., all paid for by students. These programs should be paid by the state and city.
to vote yes on BLR:
Odd, CSULB has had nationally ranked sports programs before and still does; Dirtbags, volleyball, basketball, etc. and they aren’t the lure for alumni yet? But a soccer stadium will change all of that? How, by turning rugby, frisbee and lacrosse into the new great American pasttimes? It didn’t work for the Galaxy with getting Beckham. A football team–now that’s a different story, but women’s soccer? Get real!!! You must be part of the PR team, “vote yes on BLR.” How about if we keep the costs to attend CSULB “relatively cheap” and vote no? I, like many thousands of other students, came here because it’s affordable.
I think “latination” puts up very credible arguments no matter what ethnicity she or he is. I just happen to be LATINO and Prospector Pete and the Go Beach slogan offends me because it IS RACIST. Prospector Pete was the ultimate symbol of racism when my father was among the first LATINOS admitted to CSULB @40 years ago. The statistics are all accurate and available online at csulb.edu. But your argument comes with not ONE fact; merely more sales pitch and some name calling. I think latination is no more of a race-baiting troll than you, but at least that person offered more substance than SPORTS. If the community would benefit so greatly, why not have them chip in rather than making students pay the entire fricking thing? The USC comparison the BLR cohort is making only works if we have the attraction USC does–TROJAN FOOTBALL. And it would be ridiculous to assume the only reason students attend the Trojan are because of SPORTS, or that SPORTS built USC.
i doubt latination is even a latino. just another troll race-baiting on the internet to get attention. compared to most other schools, csulb’s fees are relatively cheap. our alumni donation rate is a joke compared to other schools. fielding a competitive athletic program could boost that significantly. you might think sports are just a diversion in college life, but having a quality program can go a long way to get alumnists and the community to develop a connection with the school.
I don’t get it latination. So you are aware of the strong ethnic diversity at our school (37% without including the large Asian and Pacific Islander population on campus), yet you believe that our school is “a racist college” because 33% of blacks and latinos get scholarships. I don’t know, sounds pretty good to me. Besides the school offers ethnic students opportunities beyond mere scholarships to help in the expensive endeavor of college. For instance, my RA is a latino (from a poor neighborhood in South Central LA I might add) who has his entire living expenses covered. Instead of making this a race issue, maybe you should look at this topic as a purely financial one. Oh yeah Go Beach!
Knipe’s last quotation is sheer dumb-assery. This is definitely somebody in need of more money. “just think about the livelihood on campus non-stop”? I want to wake up in the city [campus] that never sleeps. Next referendum? Football. The one after that? A new baseball diamond? How about balancing Title IX by scrapping those popular men’s sports like rugby (definitely need a new stadium for that)? Instead we need a new soccer stadium to justify a women’s rowing team? Or will they do that in the new and improved aquatics facilities. Have any of these clowns even noticed the most recent budget decisions from Sacramento. Here’s a thought–Spend it like Beckham!!!
To “Logic anyone?”
Please use some simple mathematical equations and a bit of research into the composition of The Beach. Many Latinos–@27% and blacks–@less than 10 percent, as well as other ethnicities, comprise our student body. Around one-third receive need-based financial aid. What is your interpretation of “need-based”? The concept of institutional racism applies heavily at CSULB. For your humanities component, take a 319 course on ethnic experience and become more enlightened. For every fee increase, another low-income, minority and/or inner city student is blocked out of a public university academic opportunity–the sole reason this system was invented. The racism is inherent in the iconography of CSULB through public relations adventures past and present. What image do you think Prospector Pete, 49ers, black and gold, etc. conjure for people of color? It surely isn’t one of prosperity and human kindness if you know your California history. Do you truly believe “Go Beach” and “The Beach” are beloved symbols for non-whites? We already have tans. But the symbolism PR-wise is of sandy haired, blue-eyed, surfboard toting jocks–even though you can’t even see the ocean from our campus. But thank you for your genuine concern for my brother and sister. I’m sure they can console themselves while they wait for their turn to advance.
it’s everyone’s nation
you mean like the same scholarship you got to get here? or did your mommy and daddy pay for your ignorant ass? my brother has a 4.6 GPA and my sister has a 4.1. scholarships don’t come easy in our inner-city school district. at least not as easy as for you malibu racists. even a full ride would be a family hardship for anything above the csu, which was meant to be a free public education opportunity for everybody who made the academic cut. read the california master plan that created this PUBLIC UNIVERSITY SYSTEM, before you spout your ignorant crap.
Regarding comments not showing up, it’s an unknown bug in the College Publisher server we and other colleges run our site on. We think it may be mistaking regular comments as spam. Sorry about that inconvenience.
” I’ll tell my family and community CSULB is a racist college and to go somewhere else. That’s the real message Alexander and his jocks are sending.
“you wish to screw my family, bigot.”
Umm i think Latination and Your Name are crazy. Like seriously is that a joke? How does race even play into this?
But honestly bro I’m really sorry to hear about long beach state depriving your twin brothers and sisters an education.
Maybe you should tell your brother and sister to do better in school so they can get a scholarship.
Oh but that would be taking responsibility and not simply accusing the system or everyone else for their shortcomings. Nevermind
I had a comment not show up also, but if they were censoring, wouldn’t they have censored the comment where you said they were censoring? That would make sense to me…
Censored again by the 49er/athletics department. You guys suck and should be run off campus.
Chris, it’s hard to believe anybody could be as vile as you to deprive my little brother and sister of opportunity because we need someplace to play Lacrosse and Ultimate Frisbie. Read the god damn referendum yourself. The CSU was supposed to a free public institution for anybody that could pass muster ACADEMICALLY in the first place. Nowhere in the California Master Plan that created the CSU are ATHLETICS and RECREATION mentioned!!!! Fuck yourself like you wish to screw my family, bigot.
It is hard to believe that a university the size of LBSU does not even have a usable track or a stadium of any size. You would be hard pressed to find a local high school that did not have better outdoor facilities then LBSU. It is hard to believe that people can be so vile, as the previous two posts, when the school needs these facilities and that the students at all other like universities pay much more in fees for athletics then LB’s students.
Let’s go elitist. If this passes my little twin brother and sister won’t be able to come here because we’re a hard working, blue collar, first generation family from Columbia. Our parents sacrifice everything and now you want double their blood? I don’t think so. If this passes I’ll tell my family and community CSULB is a racist college and to go somewhere else. That’s the real message Alexander and his jocks are sending. I agree with your name, fuck them!!!!
What the hell is Knipe talking about in that last quote? Just the other day Alexander was saying we weren’t a commuter college anymore and now he’s using this fear-like campaign tactic to get us to approve more funds? Fuck the athletic department – stay away from my money you overpriced jackasses!