Each year, we award the Spirit of Long Beach to a person or group of people who move us, and who we feel we’ll remember for years to come when we look back. This year, the Spirit of Long Beach is going to a large group, but one that rarely gets mentioned in print: administrators, […]
We’ve never presented The Teamwork Award before, but there’s never been a year like the 2020-21 school year before, either. Because of the compressed nature of the sports schedule, which saw every sport (except girls’ volleyball) compete in the span of just a few months, maximum flexibility was required. The most flexible of all was […]
This week on the show we’re talking about all of the Long Beach high school student athletes we picked as our Athletes of the Year in each sport. Support The562.org
There was no mincing of words after Millikan girls’ soccer shocked the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs with a 6-0 win over visiting JSerra in the middle of May. “It felt good to get revenge,” Millikan senior Alyssa Reyes said after she dished out three assists to help the Rams finally beat the Lions. […]
One of the most memorable games of this past season wasn’t played with a CIF championship plaque on the line, or even in the playoffs. The second regular-season meeting between the Poly and Millikan baseball teams was such an exciting, well-played, back-and-forth game, it needed a highlight video almost 10 minutes long to capture the […]
There was a moment after the Long Beach Poly football team’s season-opening overtime win over Serra where Jackrabbits coach Stephen Barbee was overcome with emotion, and needed a second before he could answer a question. “These kids inspire me,” he said. “They put in work every day, they didn’t take days off, even when stuff […]
Hopefully there will never need to be another sports schedule like the one we saw this past spring. Sports seasons overlapped in new and difficult ways, making it even more challenging for multi-sport athletes to pursue their various passions. There were a number of athletes who navigated those choppy waters, but two of them stood […]
This year was the hardest year we’ve ever had selecting Coaches of the Year, with six Moore League teams winning CIF Southern Section championships and a number of others pulling off dramatic turnaround. Every coach deserves a salute for bringing a team onto the playing field during such a turbulent year, but we’re choosing to […]
The young talent in the city has been much improved over the past few seasons, and this year was no exception, with two freshmen proving themselves the best in the city at their sport. Jason Parra, Millikan Cross Country The long-awaited start of the 2020-21 high school sports season was also the triumphant debut for […]
Perhaps no team in the city represented the nationwide perseverance through the COVID-19 pandemic than the Long Beach Poly girls’ basketball team, which overcame the odds to win a CIF Southern Section Division 1 and a CIF State Southern California Regional championship. The Jackrabbits finished the season at 18-2, but their story was so much […]