Long Beach State chooses new mascot: Sharks

[MilSox]

On 5/14/2019 at 8:22 AM, Lafarge said:

Dirtbags is a name that only works in the context of baseball. Naming the rest of your athletics after a literal description of a baseball field doesn't make any sense.

Most colleges adopted nicknames that were initially used by reporters to describe the football team.  Besides, Long Beach is in the middle of a desert and situated on... well... a beach.  Both places known for having a lot of dirt.  So it's not that much of a reach.

[MDGP]

1 hour ago, NicDB said:

Most colleges adopted nicknames that were initially used by reporters to describe the football team.  Besides, Long Beach is in the middle of a desert and situated on... well... a beach.  Both places known for having a lot of dirt.  So it's not that much of a reach.

 

1. But a vast majority of those names weren't the Gridirons or anything specifically related to that specific sport. Usually it was either an animal or article of clothing that could easily transfer.

 

2. Long Beach isn't in a desert, nor is pretty much any part of Los Angeles, that's a myth. And I honestly would be shocked if anyone who has been there would ever mistake Long Beach for the desert. 

 

3. Beaches are sand, not dirt. This may seem trivial, but it really isn't. Sand is finely ground rock while dirt includes things like clay and other elements of nature (which includes sand). Even if they were the same thing, dirtbags is specifically a reference to bases on a baseball field. As I said above, you wouldn't name an entire athletics department after a piece of athletic equipment from a specific sport.

[MilSox]

I still think you're splitting hairs by separating dirt and sand. Even an unkempt field with only the basic markings for baseball is known as a sandlot.

 

Speaking of which, that also happens to be the name of a famous movie that took place in the LA County suburbs. 

 

But I think most people who heard the name "Long Beach Dirtbags" would naturally assume it was a reference to the location of the school, and not necessarily anything to do with baseball. It's not like they're named the "Outfielders" or something of that nature.

[Fresno St. Alum]

I was in Long Beach for spring break. They coulda went w/ something ship related Dockers, Clippers, Captains, so many cargo ships there. 

 

Also LIU Brooklyn Blackbirds merged w LIU Post Pioneers and are now the f'ing Sharks. lol

 

There was also a link saying that blackbirds was racist. wtf! How long until black friday is racist. 

[rams80]

7 hours ago, Fresno St. Alum said:

Also LIU Brooklyn Blackbirds merged w LIU Post Pioneers and are now the f'ing Sharks. lol

 

The really funny thing is that prior to this season no D-I team was named the Sharks.  I wonder if both schools also picked Sharks because it was unique and nobody was called that yet.

[Brian in Boston]

If Long Beach State wanted a new identity for its athletic teams, it should have adopted the name, color scheme, and logo of the now-defunct Golden Baseball League's Long Beach Armada.



Lose the baseball from the logo, and they'd be set. An identity that is relevant to both the city's seaside setting, as well as its siting on land that was once part of the Spanish land concessions of Rancho Los Nietos and Rancho Los Cerritos. 

[SFGiants58]

12 minutes ago, Brian in Boston said:

If Long Beach State wanted a new identity for its athletic teams, it should have adopted the name, color scheme, and logo of the now-defunct Golden Baseball League's Long Beach Armada.



Lose the baseball from the logo, and they'd be set. An identity that is relevant to both the city's seaside setting, as well as its siting on land that was once part of the Spanish land concessions of Rancho Los Nietos and Rancho Los Cerritos. 

 

Yeah, you'd get people complaining about how it's glorifying colonizers who tried to eradicate Native American culture in the region. 

 

It's probably why the Padres have de-emphasized the friar on their uniforms.

[CaliforniaGlowin]

I didn't want to argue it, but I laughed while reading that Long Beach was in a desert.   Uh, no dude.

[MilSox]

4 hours ago, CaliforniaGlowin said:

I didn't want to argue it, but I laughed while reading that Long Beach was in a desert.   Uh, no dude.

 

I thought all of Southern California was a desert. Evidently I was wrong.

 

However, my other points still stand. And now the two D1 schools with "Long" in their name followed by a seaside locale are both named Sharks.

[CaliforniaGlowin]

1 hour ago, NicDB said:

 

However, my other points still stand. And now the two D1 schools with "Long" in their name followed by a seaside locale are both named Sharks.

Haha yea I didn't notice that before.

[joelederer]

As a life-long Long Beach resident and LB State grad, want to clear-up a few things in this thread:

 

* The mascot was changed from Prospector Pete to a shark.

* The nickname was changed from 49ers to the preference of being referred to as Beach, The Beach or Beach Athletics. (LB State is the only D1 university with the name Beach in its name and continues to move forward accenting that fact. Sports aside, going to a school called "The Beach" does help with recruiting students and student-athletes outside of Southern California.)

* Dirtbags is baseball-only and refers to when the team used to have to practice on an all-dirt facility, leaving their unis covered in dirt.  That and the scrappy connotation of a "Dirtbag" baseball player.

 

This is the best way to explain it: Alabama Crimson Tide and their elephant mascot is to Long Beach State and their new shark mascot.  Again, jerseys won't say Sharks and teams won't be referred to as the Sharks...it's merely a mascot, not a nickname.

[Fresno St. Alum]

4 hours ago, joelederer said:

As a life-long Long Beach resident and LB State grad, want to clear-up a few things in this thread:

 

* The mascot was changed from Prospector Pete to a shark.

* The nickname was changed from 49ers to the preference of being referred to as Beach, The Beach or Beach Athletics. (LB State is the only D1 university with the name Beach in its name and continues to move forward accenting that fact. Sports aside, going to a school called "The Beach" does help with recruiting students and student-athletes outside of Southern California.)

* Dirtbags is baseball-only and refers to when the team used to have to practice on an all-dirt facility, leaving their unis covered in dirt.  That and the scrappy connotation of a "Dirtbag" baseball player.

 

This is the best way to explain it: Alabama Crimson Tide and their elephant mascot is to Long Beach State and their new shark mascot.  Again, jerseys won't say Sharks and teams won't be referred to as the Sharks...it's merely a mascot, not a nickname.

so when espn shows their bball gm it's gonna go from saying Long Beach St. 49ers to Long Beach St. Beach? Or Long Beach St. Sharks? 

[joelederer]

38 minutes ago, Fresno St. Alum said:

so when espn shows their bball gm it's gonna go from saying Long Beach St. 49ers to Long Beach St. Beach? Or Long Beach St. Sharks? 

 

My guess is when non-baseball, they will be referred in long (no pun intended) as Long Beach St. or LB State and in short as LBSU, LB ST, or BEACH, with the latter probably the university's preference.

[TenaciousG]

It bugs me how frequently schools are jumping to “Sharks” when there are a whole bunch of good animals that almost never get used as mascots (giraffes, rhinos, hippos, hyenas, etc.). I know a lot of those aren’t native to the area of the school, but not every school should be the Wildcats or something similar.

[Fresno St. Alum]

5 hours ago, TenaciousG said:

It bugs me how frequently schools are jumping to “Sharks” when there are a whole bunch of good animals that almost never get used as mascots (giraffes, rhinos, hippos, hyenas, etc.). I know a lot of those aren’t native to the area of the school, but not every school should be the Wildcats or something similar.

And why should it matter, there are no Kangaroos in KC or Akron, except at the zoo. But still cool nicknames. Hippos are my favorite animal, they need to be a mascot. 

[Brian in Boston]

32 minutes ago, Fresno St. Alum said:

 Hippos are my favorite animal, they need to be a mascot. 

 

They are... at Hutto High School in Hutto, Texas.

Then there's Pottermus, the mascot for "The Potters" of Stoke City FC in the Premier League.

[stumpygremlin]

9 hours ago, TenaciousG said:

It bugs me how frequently schools are jumping to “Sharks” when there are a whole bunch of good animals that almost never get used as mascots (giraffes, rhinos, hippos, hyenas, etc.). I know a lot of those aren’t native to the area of the school, but not every school should be the Wildcats or something similar.

Schools jumping to sharks? I still count only two that have done it recently: LIU and LBSU. Nova Southeastern and Hawai'i Pacific use it in D-2, Simmons uses it in D-3, no NAIA team uses just "Sharks," no and NCCAA team uses it. Two NJCAA teams use it (Miami-Dade and Suffolk Community College (NC)). That's seven schools out of well over 1,000.

[razorback447]

4 hours ago, stumpygremlin said:

Schools jumping to sharks? I still count only two that have done it recently: LIU and LBSU. Nova Southeastern and Hawai'i Pacific use it in D-2, Simmons uses it in D-3, no NAIA team uses just "Sharks," no and NCCAA team uses it. Two NJCAA teams use it (Miami-Dade and Suffolk Community College (NC)). That's seven schools out of well over 1,000.

 

Ole Miss just added a shark mascot. 

[matthew516]

Just realized something. UNLV's Final Four runs featured a shark mascot (an ode to Tark) ...



And Tarkanian coached at Long Beach before going to UNLV ...



Is this an intentional ode to Tark?
 

[Still MIGHTY]

4 minutes ago, matthew516 said:

Is this an intentional ode to Tark?

 

It is a nice additional connection, but I think unintentional. Everything they've put out so far has solely referenced the campus' renowned Shark Lab.

 

And yeah, as @joelederer said and as I'll update the original post to, this is just a change of the physical mascot itself. Long Beach State will still be "The Beach" or "Beach Athletics" and of course "Dirtbags" for baseball. There was a lot of initial hysteria that other places lept onto, and I did too as evidenced with the start of the thread. Here's the LBSU athletic director with clarification: 

 

 

 

So, really, all this truly does is continue to muddle with the brand of Long Beach State.

 

They are Cal State Long Beach, but are informally and athletically known as Long Beach State. The sports teams will go by "The Beach" and the baseball team will be "Dirtbags" while a Shark mascots on the sideline. Additionally, "'49er" remains an informal nickname and identifier for anyone affiliated with the university as an alumnus/alumna, employee, student, or supporter, and several school organizations, such as the Daily 49er student newspaper or the 49er Foundation.

 

"Go Cal State Long Beach/Long Beach State Beach/Dirtbags/49ers," said the Shark.