to become pets and have been allowed to continue roaming the campus. Athletics Long Beach City College has 21 athletic programs for men and women. The teams are known as the Vikings, and they have won 16 national and 84 state championships as of Spring 2006. The mascot is a viking named Ole. The Vikings are recognized as a powerhouse in some of the most competitive community college conferences in California, as well as the nation. The Long Beach City College Viking's 1950 football team celebrated what would be their first of five National Championships:(1950,1960,1962,1964,1995) The 2005-06 season saw Long Beach City College win for the first-ever time the Pepsi/NATYCAA Cup, State Associations Division, from the National Association of Two-Year College Athletic Administrators (NATYCAA). This award represents the best junior college athletics program in the state of California. LBCC won the award by 20.5 points over second-place Mount San Antonio College, buoyed by state titles in men's water polo, women's soccer, baseball, and men's volleyball, for a total of 174.5 points. Hall of Champions, the indoor athletics venue, was the home of the now-defunct Long Beach Breakers of the American Basketball Association's current incarnation. Men's intercollegiate teams Men's intercollegiate teams are: baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, soccer, swimming & diving, track and field, volleyball, and water polo. Women's intercollegiate teams Women's intercollegiate teams are: basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, swimming & diving, tennis, track and field, volleyball, and water polo. Noted staff and alumni Ahmad, rapper, songwriter, motivational speaker, and author Millicent Borges Accardi, poet, writer, National Endowment for the Arts, Fulbright, Calif. Arts Council Dominique Arnold, a track and field athlete. LaVar Ball, football player, entrepreneur Earl W. Bascom, inventor, actor, rodeo cowboy, Hall of Fame inductee, international artist and sculptor. Kenny Booker, basketball player Mack Calvin, a basketball player who played in the defunct American Basketball Association. Schea Cotton, basketball player Damion Easley, baseball player. John Fante, writer and screenwriter. Bruce Fraser, basketball coach Charles Jordan, football player Richard Keyes, Professor Emeritus at Long Beach City College, after a 30-year career there teaching life drawing and painting. Tommy 'Tiny' Lister, actor and former professional wrestler. Pat McCormick, a two-time Olympic platform and springboard diver. Charles McShane, football player Monte Nitzkowski, swimmer and water polo player; Olympics swimmer and water polo coach Lute Olson NCAA Champion Basketball Coach Jenni Rivera, Mexican-American singer-songwriter, entrepreneur Markus Steele, football player.