Idiots Write About Sports

The University of California’s Memorial Stadium has many charms. It’s one of the most beautiful places to see a college football game in the country. If you’re a regular, it’s been unchanged since the day you first started going there… mostly because it’s really in the same state it was in when it was built in 1923.

Its charms, however, don’t include the cramped benches and tight rows, designed for the tiny people who roamed the land during the Harding administration. Or the decrepit scoreboards. Or the poor training facilities that make recruiting top high school players to Cal a far tougher sell than it should be.

So it’s encouraging to read that the Memorial Stadium renovation is finally underway! Okay, maybe not quite underway, but it’s coming. Although the ball isn’t rolling, university officials have announced their intentions to buy a ball and hire a team of consultants to help them get it rolling.

The plan is quite scant on details, as you might expect. What we do know is that there won’t be any luxury boxes (thank goodness), that any corporate naming sponsor would only have its name attached to the existing Memorial Stadium name (Comcast Memorial Stadium: In Memory of All Who Died In the Name of Substandard Cable Service), and that there might or might not be seats replacing the ridiculous bench areas in at least some of the stadium.

The football players will get their modern training facility beneath the east end of the stadium; the west end will presumably be upgraded as well, with a diversion of the street that runs in front of Memorial and the creation of a plaza in front of the stadium on the west side. Oh, and there will be massive seismic upgrades since the Hayward Fault runs right through the middle of the whole place.

It will be different, that’s for sure. Any reshuffling of seats will displace season ticket holders, meaning that it’s highly unlikely I’ll continue to sit in the seats my family has had since before I was born. Entering the stadium will presumably become a true event featuring a real centerpiece entryway, as opposed to what it’s been like up to now: oddly like jumping a fence and sneaking in to an abandoned amusement park.

For at least a year, too, Cal will be playing somewhere else. Optimistically it’ll be the 2006 season, although it might be 2007 instead. Or both. My vote’s for Cruel Phone Company Overlords Park, if anyone cares.

So 85 years of tradition will soon end. Frankly, after 85 years, it’s all for the best. At the very least, Memorial should have had an upgrade in the late ’60s or early ’70s; if it had, even that upgrade would be pathetically out of date by now. The end result of this experience will, with any luck, be a stadium that’s comfortable to sit in and fun to go to, with modern bathrooms and concessions… and a solid team on the field every year, owing to the quality of the training facilities and the education.

Given how the university runs, they better choose the ball-roller wisely. Because once this is done, we’ll be stuck with the results until the next big investment in 2090.

Roll on you Bears. I'm also glad about the no luxury boxes thing. Here to the new Memorial Stadium brought to you by so and so coming soon.

I think its more likely they will be playing at the Oakland... ahem... uh... McAfee Colesium.... geeze, I hate that damn name...

I doubt the Giants want to have a football team tear up their field when they just got a baseball only stadium for themselves and CAL sports seems to usualy use Oakland for a replacment when their stadiums/Gyms are under repair/construction (CAL playing in Oakland when HAAS was being built).

Then again, this would be bad news for the Raiders, and even worse news for the Athletics.

I think, for that very reason, Cal will probably not be playing at Ineffective Virus Software Field, and will instead play at Phone Overlord Ballpark. The Giants may not want their field torn up, but they sure would like their debt load reduced by the extra income. If they can make room for Vince McMahon's travelling XFL circus, then surely, they can accomodate Cal.

That said, watch them wind up at the crumbling husk of Candlestick Park...

There's probably another blog entry in this. I think between the Raiders and A's, the Virus-Infested Coliseum is not likely. And the Giants seem to be willing to whore their stadium whenever possible (motocross!) in order to lighten the debt load and pay for more 40-year-old outfielders. Plus, it's just about as easy a BART trip...

Don't even MENTION 3Monster Park. With no public transportation, that would be a disaster of epic proportions.

I'm a charter seat holder and a Cal alum. Let me tell you I would be mighty steamed if the Giants let Cal play football in that park before November. One of the main reasons they got my sucker license money was that they were building a baseball-only stadium and I wouldn't have to see gigantic "30"s behind second. Football absolutely trashes baseball fields.

And yet the Giants brought us the XFL... you think they won't "help the community" by "allowing" Cal to play at China Basin for a year (for a fee)?

Would such an action essentially wreck the field for the Giants' last two homestands? Oh, probably... but somehow I think the Giants would erect a gigantic statue of Fidel Castro on the pitchers' mound if they got paid enough for it.

Posted by Jason at February 11, 2005 03:15 PM

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