The562’s coverage of Long Beach State athletics for the 2023-24 season is sponsored by Marilyn Bohl.
The562’s coverage of Long Beach State Basketball is sponsored by CSULB Distinguished Alumnus Nelson Farris.
The562’s coverage of Long Beach State men’s basketball for the 2023-24 season is sponsored by Arline & Mike Walter.
I cried at a sports press conference, and I’m not embarrassed at all.
Long Beach State men’s basketball had just won its first Big West Tournament championship and trip to the NCAA Championship since 2012 when the postgame presser got emotional.
Five days after finding out that the university would not be renewing his contract, and that his next loss would be his last at the Beach after 17 years of the winningest basketball in school history, Dan Monson sat on stage flanked by the Côte D’Ivoire’s duo of Aboubacar Traore and Lassina Traore.
The newly minted champs spent most of the 18-minute question and answer session talking about how the Beach basketball program isn’t just a team, but a family.
“When I came here (Monson) embraced me and he has a great family,” said L. Traore. “His wife (Darci) who is right there, she’s always taking care of us. I really appreciate everything they’ve done for me. I’m super happy for (Monson) today. I am grateful and I’m blessed to be a part of this group. I appreciate you, coach.”
Monson reached over to grab Traore’s arm and when he looked back Monson said, “I love you, man.”
“I love you too, coach.”
When they got those shrink wrapped eyes I also started crying, as did the entire Monson family standing together in the back. I mean, what a week that family just went through.
Monson then explained how the journey is more about the people you meet than the results you get, saying that he was grateful his Monson family was such a big part of the Beach family.
When Monson mentioned his sons MicGuire (current Graduate Assistant) and Maddox (current player on the team) even started as floor kids on the baseline, “When JJ was in college,” I had to sacrifice a shirt sleeve for my leaking face.
Monson was by the exit on my way out, so I stopped to thank him for the shout out, and he said, “I’m surprised you got emotional.”
I told him that even though I never played a minute I still feel like Long Beach State men’s basketball had a huge role to play in me growing up from a boy to a man, just like the players.
He had no idea how hard it was for me to hold back tears again because actually LBSU men’s basketball saved my life.
In 2006 I was a journalism student at LBSU, and although I was purposefully presenting a brave exterior, it was the darkest time of my life. The more energy I put into things, the worse they seemed to get. I would black out and ‘lose the time’ like a severe panic attack that had to preamble or encore. Everything was frustrating everywhere all at once.
Instead of taking a lot of help, I took a lot of pills and tried to take my life.
The hardest part of my attempted suicide was waking up in the hospital during a lucid dream in which my family was there to support me. When I actually woke up I was alone.
I got home from the hospital and walked directly to my balcony overlooking Pacific Coast Highway, took a deep breath like it was the first one I’d ever taken and asked myself, “What am I about?”
When you hit bottom and try to push yourself back up you have to know what you want to see at the surface or you’ll just sink again.
At the moment of pushing myself up again, I looked at PCH traffic and thought how I needed connection with some sort of community or I would never feel like I belonged. Slowly I realized it had been Long Beach all along.
Since that day I’ve dedicated myself to Long Beach sports and it’s the best decision I never made because I honestly feel like it was some sort of preconceived destiny. It’s not a coincidence that at that same time LBSU men’s basketball just so happened to have its best team in years and there wasn’t any student or city support.
So, I started the first sports page in the history of the Union Weekly Newspaper on campus. My friends from the Union helped me create a new student section and we ended up winning an award from the university for our school spirit.
Side note: My father was a cheerleader and mic man at Penn State University when they were really good at football. He and his classmates created the iconic, “We Are, Penn State” chant. So every game when the 12 minute timeout of the second half came, I’d start the chant, “We Are, Long Beach.” Cathartic doesn’t begin to explain it.
When Aaron Nixon, Kejuan Johnson and the rest of that 2006-07 LBSU team won the Big West Conference Tournament and went to Columbus, Ohio to play Tennessee, my Union Weekly family and I piled into cars and literally drove 40 hours to watch 40 minutes of basketball.
Tennessee proceeded to beat LBSU in record-breaking fashion, and it was the best time of my life— a life I was once again happy to have.
Covering that LBSU team alongside my friends and newly adopted family was the catalyst to me realizing that I wanted to dedicate myself to something that saved me from not caring anymore. That experience kept me from taking other jobs offered around the country after graduation. I had to be about Long Beach.
After graduation, one of my best friends and fellow Union kid, Mike Guardabascio, started covering Long Beach sports together. The difference was we did it online where our newly created podcasts and videos could set us apart.
It worked. Look at us now. Seventeen years later I’m traveling to report on the thing that made me feel alive again.
Of course I’m a rare sports romantic, but I believe that’s what athletic competition is all about. It’s not what you win, it’s how you play.
Or as coach Monson said, “I think life is life. Some of it is good and some of it is bad. How you pivot through it defines who you are.”
In 2008, I started my professional writing career covering Monson and the LBSU program left to pick up the pieces after NCAA sanctions. I was there for the peaks of 2012 with Casper Ware and the Fab Four. I was there for the valleys when the King/Lamb teams spoiled that momentum with selfishness. I was there when the recruiting trail seemed to branch out while Monson stayed staunch in his approach.
I used to laugh in frustration at the ridiculousness of Monson suspending a player every week when the program was at its lowest. It was always kept in house, but later we would find out that Monson wasn’t being a basketball coach when he suspended those kids, he was being a father figure. A mentor. A leader you’d want at your university.
Do I wish LBSU had more wins? Obviously. I’d never send my kid to play for Monson if I wanted him to go to the NBA. But, I would absolutely send my kid to Monson if I wanted him to return to our family as a man. Doing the right thing is rarely easy and I’m so lucky that my connection with LBSU basketball taught me that at a relatively young age.
Monson summed it up perfectly last week when he said, “It wasn’t just about wins and losses, it’s to win with principle and doing with integrity. It’s a tough business. I’m okay with what other people do, but I’ve got to look in that mirror, and I’ve got to look at these players… Hopefully when I recruit kids I always tell their parents and their guardians that if you trust them with your young man, in four or five years, I’ll give you back a grown man. We’ve had a lot of guys go through this program, and it’s been a really gratifying week to hear from a lot of them that grew up in this program and were able to leave here and go out in society and be good fathers, good people in the community. I’m proud of all of that.”
Me too, coach.
If you or anyone you know is suffering with mental health issues please call “988” or visit 988lifeline.org
