I’ve participated in my fair share of protests, but none of them were as passionately thought-provoking as the one that took in downtown Long Beach on Sunday. The reaction to another senseless killing of an unarmed black citizen by the police officers who swore to protect him has been a wide range of emotions. As […]
This is where 2020 Acura Grand Prix Of Long Beach coverage should’ve been. I should still be nursing a sunburn and wiping tire smoke from my eyes after a weekend on the downtown street course. Now I’m not even supposed to touch my face and desperately need a day out in the sun. I had […]
“Oh, what could’ve been,” has been repeating in my head. The flow of constant uplifting stories from Long Beach sports is cut off like a faucet spun tight, and it’s left me wondering. Two months ago, one of the stories on my radar revolved around the Pettway family and what could’ve been a sensational start […]
Years from now, when I am telling the story of the COVID-19 shutdown to my future students, I will struggle to capture the way in which the news was both incremental and sudden, both inevitable and completely unexpected. My students — 10th, 11th, and 12th graders at Jordan High in North Long Beach — had […]
Meetings of the Long Beach Unified School District’s Board of Education are usually pretty…well, boring. Absent of any fireworks or major disagreements, they’re almost always about an hour of cordial agreement and unanimous votes. Last week’s meeting was about as far from “usual” as the Board has probably ever gotten. Superintendent Chris Steinhauser announced that […]
I can’t believe I’m writing this, but video games are totally saving my sanity right now. The lack of live sporting events has left a hole in my personal and professional life, so this week I bought a used Xbox online with soccer and basketball games. Luckily, and surprisingly, FIFA20 and NBA2K have somewhat scratched […]
One of the best things about sports is that we’re supposed to know when they start, and when they end. It’s on the calendar, right there in black and white: start of the season, end of the regular season, playoffs, championship. I’ve always believed that their predictability and stability is one of the reasons that […]
I’m lucky to be a sports fans who can truly appreciate the internet. Not long ago, newspaper box scores and ESPN highlight packages were the only ways to find information about some sporting events. Now fans and athletes can interact everyday via social media. I’m old enough to remember watching morning SportsCenter replays with my […]
Lately I’ve been thinking about Mr. Miyagi’s famous quotes from The Karate Kid. Pearls of wisdom like, “It’s okay to lose to an opponent, it’s never okay to lose to fear” or “If the root is strong, the tree will survive” seem more poignant nowadays. Of all the beautiful advice written by Robert Mark Kaman […]
When you know you’re going to have a kid, you start daydreaming. Most of those daydreams involve how your kid will fit into your life and your story, because before they come into the world, there’s no way to fully understand how hilarious and unrealistic a thought that is. While my wife, Shar, was pregnant […]