Cal State Long Beach Prepares for a New Start

It will happen Monday that Willie Brown, new football coach of Cal State Long Beach, will blow the whistle, signaling the start of spring practice at the institution where he has succeeded the late George Allen.

Long Beach envisioned a Hall of Fame member as its field leader, figuring Allen would be voted in. It didn’t happen.

Whereupon Long Beach, impressively deep, follows with Brown, indeed a Hall of Fame man who labored 12 years with distinction in the Raiders’ secondary.

Hired last year by Allen as his assistant, Brown reflects grimly: “There is nothing sadder than George’s dying before he could be voted into the Hall. Football was his reason for living.”

George’s burial was private. But the story is told that Deacon Jones, an invited guest, tossed a football into the grave before the dirt was shoveled in. It was an item Deacon figured his old coach would like to be next to.

Asked to move forward with the program Allen started at Long Beach, Brown has spent an industrious winter. For one thing, he has hired as assistant coaches three former pros--Cedrick Hardman, Mike Davis and Jimmy Warren.

Hardman will coach the defensive line, Warren the defensive backs and Davis the running backs.

Under new rules this year, spring practice is allowed to run but 15 days. Brown assures you he could use more.

“Allen complained when he was allowed 20,” Brown recalls. “He grumbled that it used to be 30.”

But practice is the easy part of Brown’s work in the context of what he has been made to do the last four months.

“I have been recruiting,” Brown says. “That’s the good news. The bad news is, I have been recruiting against USC and UCLA. That’s in addition to Arizona, Arizona State, Washington, Cal, Fresno State, San Diego State and San Jose State.”

“Have you won any decisions?”

“A few,” he answers. “I am learning the technique. The rules allow a coach only one visit to a player’s home. This means that when you get your foot in the door, you not only have to be a fast opener, but a strong closer. One shot--and you are a winner or a loser.”

Under such circumstances, Willie has found no place for the balanced presentation. That is, he doesn’t say to the player’s mother: “Madam, let’s examine our product pro and con.”

If he wants to sell Long Beach, he forgets the con, overlooking, for instance, that the team plays in a rented stadium seating only 12,000.

Nor does he point out that Long Beach draws so well at home that it has booked eight of its 11 games this year on the road.

One of those games is against Miami at Miami. Last year against Clemson at Clemson, Long Beach suffered an accident, 59-0.

Convinced that something must be done to correct such mishaps, which he anticipated before he took office, George Allen made an interesting move.

He changed the team colors from brown and gold to black and gold, picturing black as more decisive, more forceful.

Allen never owned anything that was brown except a dog. Long Beach, besides, plays some of its games at night, and it is a rule of fashion that brown isn’t worn after dark.

Allen also raised money to build a fence around the practice field, and at the time of his death, he was on the prowl for cash to buy a computer for the coaches’ office.

With such an instrument, one could keep better records on prospects and on the livestock on hand.

A normal American until he met up with Allen, Willie Brown has come to see the advantages of a computer, too. It is high on his shopping list.

“Long Beach is a great school, offering learning opportunities to some 35,000 students,” Brown says. “It has a beautiful campus, still expanding. But football hasn’t enjoyed the highest priority. Three years ago, the school was on the verge of dropping it.”

Instead, the administration decided to roll the dice once more, removing from drydock George Allen, who was 72 but didn’t believe it.

George saved football, but regrettably, football couldn’t save George.

For Brown, now 49, this is his first experience as a head coach, but as Allen used to say, if you don’t have your first experience, you can’t have your second, third and fourth.