{"id":5,"date":"2019-05-26T06:00:13","date_gmt":"2019-05-26T13:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/?p=999945942"},"modified":"2019-06-24T03:36:18","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T03:36:18","slug":"the-hottest-place-on-earth-millikan-says-farewell-to-its-dungeon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/the-hottest-place-on-earth-millikan-says-farewell-to-its-dungeon","title":{"rendered":"‘The hottest place on Earth’: Millikan says farewell to its Dungeon"},"content":{"rendered":"

While architectural styles might vary from one Long Beach high school to another, each campus features some configuration of more or less the same components, with a quad, gym, classrooms, auditorium and other mundane hallmarks. For the last 32 years, Millikan has had a unique feature on its campus: a dungeon.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a literal dungeon, although it might appear that way in the memory of the Rams football players who\u2019ve been through the grind there. It\u2019s the half-joking, affectionate nickname for the team\u2019s ancillary weight room, and it\u2019s officially closing after years of disuse.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was ugly and it was super hot in the summer and cold in the winter, it was perfect for building football players,\u201d said former Millikan coach Kirk Diego, who coached the Rams from 1999 until 2011. \u201cA little bit of toughness. Never any chance of hurting a kid or putting them in peril, but some toughness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Picture the side of a high school football stadium, and the triangle formed in the space underneath the bleachers. That\u2019s where Millikan\u2019s weight room is located, a space that was nowhere near big enough to accommodate the football team in its heyday. The weight room held two 16-station Universal machines and would have about 40 total lift stations depending on its configuration. That wasn\u2019t sufficient for a Millikan program with 120 kids.<\/p>\n

So, in 1987, strength and conditioning coach Kirk King, a substitute teacher on campus at the time, built a little sweatbox annex on the back of the weight room, crammed into the narrowest part of the triangle under the front of the bleachers. Because its ceiling was the metal of Millikan\u2019s stands, it got hot in there, and it was pretty cramped. But King squeezed in an additional 15 work stations, which Diego would later expand to 20 with new equipment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat made it possible for us to work out 80 to 120 kids at the same time,\u201d said Diego. \u201cI could stand in the doorway between the two rooms\u2014to my right was the main weight room, to the left was the dungeon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Dungeon in better times; better being a relative term.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The dungeon was a staple under coaches David Shawver, Dave Radford and Diego, but after Diego\u2019s departure following the 2011 season, it began to fall into disuse. The last couple of seasons it hasn\u2019t been used at all, and this school year it\u2019s been essentially a storage room for trash or broken equipment. The famous \u201cTogether Everyone Achieves More\u201d sign is blocked from view, the handprints that were painted on the underside of the bleachers faded.<\/p>\n

Now the room has been labeled a fire hazard because there aren\u2019t enough points of egress, and it\u2019s officially closed for good.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s disappointing,\u201d said Paul Slater, a former Millikan quarterback who graduated in 2010. \u201cIt matched up with the kind of players we always were at Millikan: ragtag, underdogs. That\u2019s what that room meant, putting in the hard work where nobody could see us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The room itself became a kind of status symbol among Millikan football players. Dave Radford, the son of coach Radford, remembered hoping to earn his way into it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an honor to finally be able to lift in there after freshman football,\u201d he said. \u201cSo much sweat and self-confidence came out of that place. The dungeon had a habit of weeding out the lambs and making Rams. I\u2019m bummed to see it go.\u201d<\/p>\n

That idea of sweating out weakness, separating tough players from weak ones, has since fallen out of favor in youth sports, at least among parents and kids. Plenty of coaches still yearn for those days, but the current Millikan administration is aware that the day for that has passed\u2014for better or worse.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, it had a great history, but I think we all know parents aren\u2019t lining up to send their kids to the dungeon,\u201d said Millikan athletic director Kevin Marchael. \u201cThings change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slater said the importance of a room like that wasn\u2019t just about separating players into categories, but about bringing them together as a de facto clubhouse as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the hottest place on Earth,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had a fan that would blow but it was just blowing 150-degree heat at us. So we\u2019d all be back there cracking jokes about how miserable it was. I\u2019ll never forget the \u2018Together Everyone Achieves More\u2019 sign, we made fun of it every day. But that was the fun of being on a team\u2014when we see each other we make jokes about the games and we make jokes about the dungeon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Dungeon was the handiwork of strength coach Kirk King.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Slater also said that while he has fond memories of lifting with his friends in the summer heat, he\u2019s not surprised that it fell out of use or that it\u2019s being permanently closed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people there now, they\u2019re not crying because the dungeon\u2019s going away, it doesn\u2019t bother those kids,\u201d he said. \u201cFor the older generations it\u2019s kind of disappointing because it meant so much to us, but that\u2019s not the game anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth noting that the game is in good shape at Millikan. The Rams won playoff games each of the last two years, the first time that\u2019s happened since the Dungeon opened. Participation on the team is up, and Millikan has been the second-place team in the Moore League the last two years.<\/p>\n

Diego also said he understands how things have changed, and why there\u2019s a move away from football classics like the dungeon (although he\u2019s still annoyed at it being labeled a fire hazard after three decades of use). The longtime coach is set to retire from teaching at the school in a few months, and while he\u2019s aware of the change that\u2019s happening to his sport, he doesn\u2019t see it as a positive thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my humble opinion it\u2019s a toughness issue,\u201d he said. \u201cLike any other skill, you\u2019ve got to train to be tough. Alabama football\u2019s motto is \u2018Fighting Through Breaking Points.\u2019 The teams that move that breaking point, the guys that play at that other level, they win.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dungeon has become a symbol for a larger transition in football. Nobody knows what the future will look like, one where the game is safer but also perhaps requires less toughness. What is clear is that those who were there for the way the sport used to be will miss it.<\/p>\n

Slater, who was an honors student in Millikan\u2019s QUEST magnet in addition to a quarterback, said he\u2019s glad he grew up in the era that he did, even if it wasn\u2019t that long ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t think that type of environment is part of the game anymore,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know. The science proves head injuries are bad, and it\u2019s better to take care of your body. I get that. But I wouldn\u2019t trade any of those memories for anything.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The MIllikan weightroom’s closure not only signals a change of venue but a change in attitudes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":250,"featured_media":16387,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","pmpro_default_level":0,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","footnotes":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,7],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6000,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions\/6000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}