There is at least one positive thing to come from last week's report that Long Beach State sports is facing severe budget cuts: As they say in alcoholic support groups, everyone now realizes there's an elephant in the room.

For more than four months, people in and around the athletic department have been ignoring the elephant while hoping it would leave the room on its own. All of the talk about budget cuts when, how large, who it would affect were conducted in whispers.

The whispering stopped on Wednesday.

The meeting between the head coaches and administration, convened at the request of the coaches looking for specifics, answers and guidance, marked the first time a number ($200,000) was put in front of the word cut for 2004-05 and someone acknowledged that sports could be eliminated in 2005-06 if the financial situation in Sacramento and Long Beach didn't improve.

It literally led some coaches to bolt for the door, muttering loudly about everything from the lack of answers and information at the meeting to their opinions about athletic director Bill Shumard, who has been ill and absent since mid-March, and his assistants.

This is a good thing.

Dialogue always beats whispers. The situation is now on the record for everyone involved, and it has been duly noted that select coaches and administrators are not reading from the same book, much less the same page.

There may not be solutions at hand, but it's easier to move forward in light than stagger in the dark.

There's already been a positive response to speculation that men's volleyball and water polo are the programs in danger. Long Beach State President Dr. Robert Maxson assured men's volleyball coach Alan Knipe and water polo coach Rick Azevedo that their programs are safe.

As they should be.

"I got a call from Dr. Maxson saying it will never happen and I could tell anyone I want that,' said Knipe, whose team is ranked No. 2 in the nation.

The last time the 49ers were in this situation, decisions were definitely made covertly.

In 1991, the administration (President Curtis McCray, athletic director Corey Johnson) spontaneously axed four sports men's and women's swimming and diving, men's tennis and men's golf because of a state budget cut. Men's golf was eventually saved thanks to community financial support for coach Del Walker.

The thought that Long Beach, with a swimming legacy dating back half-a-century that includes Pat McCormick, the first two- time Olympic double gold medalist, was going to lose a college swim program left everyone shaking their heads as if they had water in their ears. Long Beach dropping swimming is like Boston University dropping hockey.

The 49ers finished in the NCAA team top ten five times between 1969 and 1978 while producing nine NCAA individual champs. Two weeks before the decision, Tim Shaw, the 49ers swim coach and former Olympian who won three individual NCAA swim titles as a 49er swimmer, said "At this time, I don't fear our sport will be dropped (because) it's part of a great aquatic community.'

Two weeks later, his sport was murdered. "I can't believe the swimming program was breaking the sports department,' he said. It wasn't, and its elimination proved pointless. A year later, the university pulled the plug on the money-draining football program.

A comment made in 1991 by Don Dyer, one of the most influential 49er boosters and later an associate athletic director, applies just as readily today. "It bothers me because the people impacted (the coaches) are Long Beach people.'

For those who don't know, Knipe is a 49er alum who was part of the 1991 NCAA title team. Azevedo has been around local pools for more than two decades and won CIF titles regularly at Wilson High before becoming the 49ers coach and raising both the men's and women's programs to the national top ten.

Maybe that's the problem. The coaches have such strong local profiles and done such wonderful work on the field that it's easy to become aggravated at the thought budget cuts.

Especially since the school was blessed by four separate incidents dropping football in 1992, opening the Pyramid, the arrival of Maxson, the Beach Pride Initiative that should have left the program flush and capable of adding to the city's sports legacy.

Because all of the sports are important around here. Tennis is important because of Billie Jean King. Golf is important because of Mark O'Meara, Laura Baugh and Earl Woods, who unleashed his son on our courses. Volleyball can trace its very beginnings to Long Beach club teams and its miles of sand.

There's never been a national water polo team without an area athlete on it. The same goes for softball. We've had our share of Olympic track stars, too, swimming has been noted, and nothing needs to be said when it comes to baseball.

Basketball? It's important, too, although the unfortunate reality is that the Wayne Morgan experience is still being felt two-plus years after his departure. If the men's team was at least competitive and drawing fans, no one might be talking about budget cuts and polarized coaches and administrators.

Volleyball coach Knipe offered views worth considering. He doesn't blame anyone for the situation. He just says it's time for everyone to meet at the same table and work together.

He says the cut might have much greater if not for the work athletic staff. He says the administration has treated him great, his budget having grown $14,000 since he took over. When he played here, former coach Ray Ratelle had two scholarships; Knipe now has the NCAA maximum of 4. He also has a great deal of control over his summer camp and his own fund-raising, which isn't the case on every campus.

"I have no reason to complain, and to say the administration isn't doing what it can is inaccurate,' he said.

"Everyone is saying we're having a wonderful spring, but I don't think anyone has bothered to note that most of the coaches having this great spring (Knipe, Azevedo, baseball coach Mike Weathers, women's tennis coach Jenny Hilt-Costello) were hired by Bill Shumard.

"I'm not saying there are no easy solutions, but we can talk about them together, and work on them together.'

Put a saddle on the elephant and move forward.