First, the normally buoyant atmosphere in a weekly Century Club meeting was dampened a little by president Steve Blood’s announcement that his house has closed escrow, and that he’ll be moving in the short future.  Steve got a hearty thanks from the club, and a standing ovation—he’ll be missed!

LBPOSTsports was there to give our weekly rundown of all things Long Beach—first, we let the club know that last week’s speaker, Mauricio Ingrassia, was the latest recipient of the Century Club Bump—a well-documented phenomenon that shows that coaches who speak to the club tend to have good things happen to them.  Ingrassia’s Long Beach State women’s soccer team upset no. 21 Missouri a few days after his speech.

I also fielded general questions from the audience about HS football, with predictions, explanations, and breakdowns from the last game—always a fun time to interact with other Moore League football fans, and there was much Bruin/Ram/Jackrabbit smack-talk.

Then the evening’s speaker took the stage: longtime LBCC men’s basketball coach and former Poly Jackrabbit Gary Anderson, a self-described “Long Beach guy.”  Anderson is the definition of a Long Beach guy, having played for the ‘Rabbits and Vikings, and staying in the city while his kids went through LB high schools. 

With a few decades of coaching experience under his belt, Anderson had plenty of good stories to tell, including how his players dumped Gatorade all over him after the first championship, soaking UCI’s home court—in the midst of the celebration, LBCC’s then-President slipped and fell on the mess.  He also told a moving story about the time his team’s vehicle was called back to a hospital while on the road, to settle a disputed bill—while they were back, one of his players went into convulsions.  Fortunately, there was a hospital right across the street, and he was fine—but the doctors said if they’d been even ten or fifteen minutes down the road, as they’d planned to be, he wouldn’t have made it.

Wild, fun stuff as usual—but these weekly recaps are nowhere near as fun as the atmosphere of a Century Club meeting, so be sure to show up next Tuesday at the Grand, at 6pm.  And a few weeks after, on the 29th, both Long Beach State men’s basketball coach Dan Monson and mayor Bob Foster will be on hand to speak to the group.