Changes Afoot at Bowl
By Larry Wilson:
Pasadena Star-News
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Going underground was one suggestion for Rose Bowl expansion back in the pipe-dream days of luring the boys from the NFL.
It was mostly parking spots that were to be subterranean. But that much digging ain't cheap, especially in the rockiest dirt known to shovel - if you'd ever probed below the topsoil there, you'd know where the world-renowned Arroyo Seco granite boulders come from.
So it was going to cost about a squillion bucks per Bentley, and, along with the rest of the pro-football proposal, it didn't pencil out.
But for the necessary work at the beloved stadium, the projects continue, and it was kind of a kick to get a tour of the new locker rooms Monday.
I'd heard for decades how crummy and cramped the old changing areas were, but I'd never actually been in them.
The new ones, which you can view at Staff Photographer Sarah Reingewirtz's gallery on our Web site, are absolutely massive.
The Rose Bowl Operating Company found the space by going down, and the new rooms have been very well done, our own Carlsbad Caverns minus the rocky outcroppings. The Tournament of Roses pitched in financially. Now the UCLA Bruins and their opponents will get taped up and hopped up by coaches' speeches much more comfortably this fall, including rare visitors Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish's own stadium has in the past at least offered famously dismal locker-room conditions to visiting teams.
Toured, ate a cookie, marveled at the beautiful clear-varnished wood cubby holes provided for each player and wondered out loud if the players' cleats wouldn't instantly, nastily scratch them up.
“Um, I think the cleats are sort of soft rubber and plastic these days, Larry,” chimed in new PUSD school board member Tom Selinske.
Oh. When I was a backup center on the Eliot Junior High School Huskies' B team, I had a Jim Thorpe helmet and high-tops with long metal cleats.
And it wasn't until I read Sarah's photo caption that I knew why the locker rooms were built as big and empty as they are - 5,000 square feet seemed a bit large even for the corn-fed behemoths who play the game now.
There's space for 89 giants to do jumping jacks together, see.
