{"id":153698,"date":"2026-01-28T19:21:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T19:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/153698\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T19:21:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T19:21:06","slug":"long-beach-football-community-reacts-positively-to-polys-travon-patterson-hire-the562-org","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/153698\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach Football Community Reacts Positively to Poly\u2019s Travon Patterson Hire \u2013 The562.org"},"content":{"rendered":"

The562\u2019s coverage of Long Beach Poly Athletics for the 2025-26 school year is sponsored by Former Jackrabbits\u00a0Wendell \u201cWoWo\u201d Moe, Jr. & Tyson Ruffins.<\/a><\/p>\n

Long Beach Poly football fans are the largest and loudest group of local sports fans in the city, and they\u2019re never shy about expressing their opinion. Recently, Jackrabbit fans and the larger Long Beach football community reacted loudly\u2013and favorably\u2013to the hiring of Poly alum Travon Patterson as the school\u2019s next football coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been really humbling and exciting,\u201d he said about the online response. \u201cNow it\u2019s about taking the momentum and moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patterson\u2019s hire getting approval from the community isn\u2019t surprising since this go-around, the Poly administration did a full coaching search and also had a community panel to interview the candidates. Multiple interviewees confirmed that legendary Poly coach Jerry Jaso (also a Poly alum) as well as Daysha Austin were on the panel. Austin has been heavily involved in Long Beach youth football for years and is the mother of recent Poly alums Alex and Daylen Austin (Alex will be playing in the Super Bowl for the New England Patriots).<\/p>\n

The news of Patterson\u2019s hiring received thousands of likes and shares and hundreds of comments on The562\u2019s social media pages, a feel-good moment for the Poly community after a frustrating football season. The most overwhelming reaction from those sharing the story was excitement that the Jackrabbits\u2019 administration hired an alum.<\/p>\n

Poly football hasn\u2019t had an alumni running the program since Raul Lara, who won five CIF Southern Section Division 1 championships from 2001 through 2013. The program has had three other coaches since: Antonio Pierce, Stephen Barbee, and Justin Utupo. Pierce\u2019s Jackrabbits were still a Division 1-relevant program, Barbee won a CIF-SS championship, and Utupo\u2019s one year was the difficult 2024.<\/p>\n

Fair or not, many Poly fans reacted negatively on social media to the fact that Utupo was a Lakewood alum, and felt that hometown cooking would be needed to restore the Poly tradition.<\/p>\n

As Facebook commenter Joshua Morgan wrote of Patterson, \u201cHe know the language and the journey. Congratulations Coach.\u201d Gregory Williams wrote, \u201cNothing like having that homegrown cooking in the kitchen!! Good selection and good luck LB Poly!!\u201d<\/p>\n

One thing that Poly fans don\u2019t always acknowledge is that they aren\u2019t always the nicest to their own. Even Lara, who was wildly successful by any measure, was heckled and dealt with negative comments, something he\u2019d often joke about while coaching at his alma mater. Alum Chris Love acknowledged the need to come together behind Patterson.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we need to get behind and support him,\u201d he wrote. \u201cHe understands the tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other comments highlighted his deep roots, with one Poly alum writing, \u201cHe was my son\u2019s first football coach on the Patriots. He set the standard and no other football coach has even come close to him. Already looking forward to the next football season especially since it will be led by a Jackrabbit alumni. Loyalty isn\u2019t just our school song, it\u2019s everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prominent Poly alums and members of the community left messages of support, including multiple NFL players. Among those commenting were Jayon Brown, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Marcedes Lewis, Terrence Austin, Tray Session, Antoine Cason, Will Alo, Knocc Smith, Johnny Nash, Matt Rowe, Reggie Ward, and Nicc Iamaleava, the father of UCLA QBs Nico and Madden Iamaleava.<\/p>\n

Other coaches even commented in support of the decision, including Millikan\u2019s Romeo Pellum and former Poly coach Justin Utupo.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Patterson\u2019s success will depend on a number of factors. First is keeping star players already in the program from transferring, which he\u2019s already done a good job of. Another is assembling a coaching staff\u2013announcements are expected soon on some key coordinator positions.<\/p>\n

The other factors will be the ability to attract the next generation of Poly players, and to have the support of the school and district administration. Poly and USC legend Hershel Dennis noted that changes in district policy have hurt the Poly football program, and hoped that they\u2019d support Patterson.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy for my brother and hope the fan base has grace with your process,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not easy being a head coach at the Ly. Praying for support through thick and thin, and hopefully this hire keeps the bigs in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The562\u2019s coverage of Long Beach Poly Athletics for the 2025-26 school year is sponsored by Former Jackrabbits\u00a0Wendell \u201cWoWo\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-153698","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-long-beach","9":"tag-long-beach-headlines","10":"tag-long-beach-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}