Introducing the Big West Teams: Long Beach State University 49ers

It’s the offseason, and what better to do with the offseason than to continue delayed projects. The “Introduction” series focuses on individual schools of the Big West.  This introduction will focus on the school, the fans, the athletics and other random trivial facts.  Hopefully, this will be an educational and fun introduction.  Of course, if you the alumni/fan of that team would like to correct me, feel free to do so in the comment section below or shoot me an email.

For previous introductions, click below:

Cal Poly

Cal State Fullerton

Cal State Northridge

With that, allow me to introduce (in alphabetical order) the next member of the current Big West Conference: the Long Beach State 49ers.

California State University, Long Beach
Location: Long Beach, California
Established: 1949
Students: 34,870 (as of Fall 2011)

Colors: Gold and Black
Mascot: Prospector Pete
Famous Alumni (my choice): Steven Spielberg

LBSU was established in 1948 under the name Los Angeles-Orange County State College (opened in 1949). After one year under that name and teaching in apartment complexes, the citizens of Long Beach voted to buy 322 acres with tax dollars for a permanent campus. The very next year the LAOCSC was renamed Long Beach State College where it would keep the name until 1964 where the new name change California State College, Long Beach where it reflected being a part of the Cal State system. In 1972, the school reached university status, and, like 12 other CSC schools, became Cal State University, Long Beach. The simplicity of the campus buildings, keeps the campus design focus on the greenery, and they have been awarded numerous times for it. As far as I am aware of, LBSU is the only university to have the name “Beach” in the name, so with this in mind, LBSU affectionately carries “The Beach” as a nickname.

Click to embiggen

LBSU (B) is settled nicely close to the beach, so you can hit Disneyland (C ) and Huntingdon Beach in the same day.

Academically, LBSU is extremely versatile for both the Humanities and Sciences. For the highest level being a Master's degree, LBSU is a Top 50 undergraduate program in the nation. It also graduates the highest number of Masters of Nursing degrees in California as well as having the most art and design majors in the country. Recently, the music department received an endowment gift of 16.4 million dollars from the Bob Cole estate, and as a result, renamed the department after him.

Is there any question as to what LBSU's most famous landmark is?

Oh look! We made it to the Luxor...wait, that's not right...

Yes, ladies and gentlemen the Walter Pyramid, LBSU's indoor sporting complex is the most noticable thing on campus. Built in 1994, the Walter Pyramid is only one of 3 true mathematical pyramids in the nation, the other two being the Luxor Las Vegas and Pyramid Arena in Memphis. This 22 million dollar project has a distinct dark-blue sheen that comes from the aluminum blend.

The 49ers have had a long tradition of dominance in a variety of sports. The baseball team has been known since the late 80's as the Dirtbags because of their scrappy play and their refusal to go down without a fight. This has led to many NCAA tourney appearances as well as 4 CWS appearances. The men's basketball team has had recent success making appearances in the NCAA tourney, while the women's team showed conference dominance in the 1980's. The volleyball teams (both men and women's ) have showed national dominance winning national championships in 1991 for the men and 1989, 1993 and 1998 for the women.

Here are some more fun facts about LBSU:

• Part of the LBSU campus lies on Puvunga, an ancient Tongva village and burial site.
• LBSU's colors were brown and gold before 2000, when under a student vote prompted an official color change to black and gold.
• Since the establishment of the university, there has been at least one Olympian from the school in every Olympics since then.
• LBSU has also created an excellent coaching tree with famous great names like Jerry Tarkanian, Lute Olsen and George Allen.

And now you know a little about the 49ers!

Next up: UC Davis

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