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To walk around Long Beach and see, hear, or talk about a superstar is not uncommon. Long Beach Poly High School alone has produced the likes of Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg, and Warren G, and boasts over a dozen current and former NFL players includingWillie McGinest, DeSean Jackson, and, most recently, Juju Smith-Schuster.

As luck would have it back in 1996, the paths of Long Beach Poly football and one of hip-hop'sgreatest icons would cross on a fateful day in September.

To most rap fans, Sept. 7, 1996, will forever be remembered as the day Tupac Shakur was fatally shot to death. But in a story nearly lost to the history of that day, Bleacher Report's Jeff Pearlmantracked down the members of the 1996 Long Beach Poly football teamto recount their near standoff with mortalityas they encounteredShakur hours before his deathat a Barstow, California In-n-Out on their way home from a loss in Las Vegas:

With the help of members of that Long Beach team, Pearlman recounts the surreal story and the players near brush with tragedy.

There is a reason why Snoop Dogg and Nate Dogg have done so many collaborations: Long Beach Poly attracts talent, and when on campus, the talent attracts talent. This has also been the case in athletics asthe football program has been built into a national powerhouse and sends handfuls of athletes to colleges on full-ride scholarships each year. The stars that Poly has produced, too, never stray far from their roots. Snoop Dogg's 'Snoop Youth Football League' pipelines players to Poly and other high school's in the Greater Long Beach area.

For the musical talent from Long Beach, the 1990s proved to be the most successful decade as two heavyweights Snoop Dogg and Nate Dogg paired with Compton collective N.W.A.: Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy E, and D.J Yella, all culminating in the founding of Death Row Records -- a record label known most notably for the personalities of Suge Knight and Tupac. Similarly, the Long Beach Poly football program began its dominance of the CIF in the same era. The soon-to-be college and NFL players of the 1996 Long Beach Poly football team identified with the rise to prominence of the famous and local rappers, but could also relate to them on a deeper level. The life experiences expressed through Tupac's music wereaccessible to the young Long Beach Poly players, but on that day, they were confronted with the difference between a life of falling victim to those experiences and finding a catharsis through sport.

It seems that Tupac only speaks the truth in his lyrics: "Worldwide, let them recognize from Long Beach to Rosecrans," the Poly football team was allowed to recognize, but they should have known to recognize the "Flossing, but have caution."