Are they planning on tearing down Pauley and starting from scratch? I think that is a little far fetched to say “it is just a building..” and not UCLA Basketball. I understand your point, but I guess I am old school and would rather have pauley renovated and improved, instead of being torn down and built from scratch. This is a Great Post and should provide more oppurtunity’s to get people’s true feelings on the matter out!

I know that Yankee Stadium was having some structural problems, but I always liked going there to catch a game, especially against the Red Sox. I am a Dodgers fan so I dont really care about the AL. Still, if you ever spent any time with Red Sox fans, you would know why people root against Boston teams. That being said, Shea Stadium was much more impersonal, and I do not mind it going away at all, especially if it will expunge the base running problems that the Dodgers had there two years ago in the first round of the playoffs. But Yankee Stadium was loud because it was always packed and the sections were vertically stacked for extra closeness to the action. The seating ran right up to the edge of the outfield (which was the opposite of Shea).

Regarding Pauley, I love Pauley. It is more like a giant high school gym than an Anaheim Sports Arena (which is a professional venue for better or worse). Pauley is much more personal. If you have 100 section tix you can walk down and talk to the cheerleaders before the players exit the tunnel (awesome!) and walk behind the TV announcers or behind the basket to find your seats. I guarantee you that the new floorplan will probably isolate the floor area from the seating, which will end up being more like the Anaheim Sports Arena (or whatever they call it). Sure you will be able to get your 32 oz. Icee/Slurpee from more food stations and the seats will be modern, but imho the old Pauley which rode my bike by each day on the way to Westworld as a kid was the best. I still remember the cheers from the 1970’s Bruins squads echoing outside on game days.

Well, what about the following:
1. The Rose Bowl, with its single entry tunnel, seating that even for good seats, is way back from the field, old, tired, and needs to be scraped.
2. The coliseum. While there are two entries, the last time i was there, it was in the visitor’s seats, and awful. Poor visibility, old and real tired…scrape it.
3. Staples… If you have a good seat it is a good experience…. Real commercial.
4. Galen.. I haven’t been there, but my SC honk friends believe it is real good.
5. Pauley… Not sure a scrape is in order ’ala the others mentioned above, but it definitely needs some major work (devoid of all the “multi-sport” access), make it a basketball arena and a first class one too. It might be cheaper to scrape, although that is usually not the case.
Bill

I believe that Walking into Pauley should be an experience in and of itself. There’s should be tributes to the greats, a pathway bearing statues of icons, or even of UCLA tradition, maybe beautiful steel or Copper looking championship poles as people approach the sports center. Frankly I believe that given the nature of the UCLA preserving its tradition there should be something for the masses to see, people from all of Los Angeles who come by should understand what it means to see the Bruins play basketball. Excellent post, I’ve wanted to see a much grander and bigger scheme instead of a simple Home Depot upgrade of this palace.

those banners are the only things I really, really like about Pauley.

Can any of the Bruin history buffs fill me in on why our football team always faces the afternoon sun at home games? It seems like a big disadvantage. The away team always has the sun at their back so it is easier to see what is going on on the field. Also, it isn’t as draining when the sun is at your back. During late afternoon games, the away team gets shade first, a significant advantage during the hotter weather at the beginning of the season. None of it makes sense to me.

 I was trying to run to run win loss numbers and point spread by year for home games comparing day and night games but I couldn’t find previous years’ start times posted on the internet anywhere.

I’d like to see them play Fresno State lined up on the opposite sideline this week, but I know that won’t happen. Even if there is some big tradition reason for why they line up over there, doesn’t this seem like a good year to change things? New coaches, etc? Maybe we can do something different in 2009?

I was at Pauley for the first game, featuring a freshman named Ferdinand Louis Alcindor, Jr. I had Intermediate Basketball for a couple of years there for PE (if you took two PE classes, you could get a full unit of A, which in my case was more units of A than I usually got.) I haven’t been there for many years, so maybe I shouldn’t get a vote. But as far as I’m concerned, all we should keep is the court and the rafters. We need lots of rafter space for all the stuff hanging up there, and we need to make sure there’s room for more. And I think our court has just as much history as that parquet business in Baaaaaaston. But no one would probably know if the court got changed anyway, as long as the right words were painted on it (Mr. and Mrs. Coach.)

Anyway, there’s my two cents.

sorry to be a stick in the mud but changes to pauley or a new venue bring on problems. how long will construction take and where would we play home games? the forum is now a church and the sports arena is a dump. also, to generate revenue for construction, you have to worry about selling the naming rights. could you stomach: dorritos nacho cheese pauley pavilion or john and nell wooden court of pizza hut? not me. if you do anything, improve the players locker rooms.

The floor and banners are what really matter. I think the Howland Era Bruins deserve a worthy facility just as Coach Wooden’s Bruins had in then-state of the art Pauley.

I know that Pauley will be redone. So instead of swimming up stream, I would like to suggest some aspects to preserve…
1) I LOVE the easy access from the parking into Pauley.
2) I would love to have more exits from parking to the street.
3) I would love to have the same floor access
4) Games are so short that we do not need more food venues, especially without beer (which is a good thing, right? Its an NCAA or a PAC-10 thing: think about those rude AU fans if they were served beer inside. Oh wait, they were students under 21, and probably still intoxicated form their pre-game)
5) I would love to keep the floor access
6) I would love to keep the seats VERY CLOSE to the action. I would love to explore having the design similar to the VANDY venue which has been determined to be a BIG advantage for their home games.

7) Have more UCLA history for the fans in the access areas.

This is to be our HOME court, and I think the school should make it a point to create as much of a HOME court advantage as possible. We should have students on all four sides of the court in the first x-number of rows (on the theory that seats so close to the court have poor sightlines such that the wealthy and influential alumni will want to sit in the “good” seats.) I can’t think of a better HOME court advantage than that. Well, maybe having Coach Howland and all the players he recruits is a little helpful as well.