The January 16 collapse of part of the suspended ceiling over the loading dock on the Walter Pyramid’s south entrance has forced a lot of rapid reshuffling for Long Beach State. Their iconic venue hasn’t hosted a game for the last 10 days, as the school’s men’s volleyball and men’s and women’s basketball teams have all been hosting contests in the Gold Mine–a much smaller, less modern venue.
With construction crews working through the weekend, there was optimism from Long Beach State administrators that the Beach could return to the Pyramid this upcoming week.
“Beach Building Services has taken control of the repairs to the Walter Pyramid, and those repairs are under the facade of the cosmetic ceilings (over the entrances), just to ensure safety,” said LBSU athletic director Bobby Smitheran on Friday evening. “That work is going on right now. We’ll have an update by, I would say, the middle of next week, in anticipation of Thursday’s men’s basketball game against UC Irvine. The goal is to play that game there. There’s hope. The hope is that we’ll be good to go Thursday.”
The clock is certainly ticking as the Beach men’s basketball team host UC Irvine on Thursday, and a massive Feb. 5 meeting between the Beach and UCLA men’s volleyball looms. The LBSU/UCLA match routinely draws 4,000+ to the Pyramid, significantly more fans than would fit in the Gold Mine.
LBSU men’s volleyball coach Alan Knipe’s squad is ranked No. 1 in the nation, and while they politely dealt with hosting Concordia in the Gold Mine, the sport as it’s currently played doesn’t really fit in the old gym. Some fans counted how many balls bounced up into the ceiling overhang during warmups, for example.
“It’s one of those things obviously that’s totally out of our control, it’s just one of those things that has to get signed off on,” said Knipe. “I feel pretty good from what I’m hearing.”
Knipe and the LBSU admin have put a ton of effort into turning the Pyramid into a world-class volleyball arena over the last several years. The custom floor that gets rolled out for matches, for example, has only volleyball lines on it, in addition to the spacious roof that has plenty of room for high passes after rocket serves.
The Gold Mine roof is too low and also the floor has lines for virtually every indoor sport imaginable, by comparison–and the seating is not only limited in capacity, it’s also very close to the boundary for a sport like men’s volleyball, which spills off the playing surface frequently.
“It sounds like things point to being able to play in the Pyramid, and the fact that Bobby (Smitheran) and Mark (Edrington, Senior Associate AD over facilities) haven’t come to me talking about a contingency makes me feel like they think the same as I do,” said Knipe. “So I’m just going to close my eyes and cross my fingers and hope. But we absolutely cannot control it and so we won’t worry too much about it.”
Smitheran said that the campus’ Beach Building Services is leading a multi-team effort to get the Pyramid ready to host fans again. MHP Structural Engineers is also there and the Campus Master Consulting Structural Engineers are also helping to source whatever materials will be needed. And everything is being peer reviewed by the CSU Seismic Peer Reviewer as well.
One thing that isn’t likely to come out of the process is a clear explanation of what caused the ceiling over the loading dock to fall in the first place. “We’ll never know,” said Smitheran. “That loading dock is an interesting place because it’s kind of a wind tunnel, and it’s possible that with the wind we had going that played into it.”
Smitheran said the work going on at the Pyramid is specifically to make sure that the cosmetic ceiling pieces over the other entrances aren’t in danger of falling.
“It’s a precautionary measure,” he said. “We just want to ensure everybody’s safe.”
Safe and, hopefully in the next week, back in the friendly confines of the campus’ most iconic venue.
