UCLA Football: Facilities, Facilities, Facilities...

UCLA's Spaulding Field. Photo courtesy of Sprinturf.com

Scott Robinson

Just days after the ex-UCLA coach’s hot seat was pulled out from under from him, Rick Neuheisel sat in with CBS’s Inside College Football. In the spotlight, Neuheisel was reminded of a few words he had shared in retrospect of his years in Westwood:

[UCLA] needs to learn to finance its expectations.

In hindsight, athletic facilities are an easy target for blame for UCLA’s lowly seasons under Coach Rick. Neuheisel’s replacement, Jim L. Mora, begs to differ. While recognizing the fact facilities can always be upgraded, Mora stated on KLAC 570’s Loose Cannons the following:

A field’s a field. Grass is grass. If you’re a good football team and a good football coach we should be able to go down to some park in LA and practice and be ready to play on Saturday.

I think UCLA has a practice field, right? Albeit, rubber.
It must be rough playing football for UCLA. Ranked 13th in the 2011 ARWU, or “Shanghai Rankings," UCLA is one of the most internationally recognizable universities. Its campus sits in the very heart of Los Angeles. With a 400+ acre plot of highly-coveted downtown property, a $1.8 billion endowment, 40,000 students and 30,000 staff, UCLA certainly is no city college. Since 1998, UCLA has received the highest number of undergraduate applications, on an annual basis, for freshmen in all of the country.

UCLA’s setting is hard to match. First off, Los Angeles County averages 330 days of sunshine. Secondly, the campus is flanked, within ten miles of each direction, by two of the largest tourist attractions in Southern California: 3rd Street Promenade, with its sun-laden Santa Monica beach, and the bustling Hollywood showcase of the Sunset Strip. Unlike Watts, Westwood’s environment does not require iron-wrought fences circumscribing its campus…

And yes, the Bruins have competitive athletic facilities. UCLA's Acosta Center, remodeled in 2006, is comprised of 24,000 square feet for use by student-athletes. Additionally, the team’s home venue of Pasadena’s Rose Bowl, the unparalleled “Grand-daddy-of-them-all,” is currently undergoing millions of dollars of upgrades. Futhermore, Pauley Pavilion (home to Bruin basketball, volleyball and varying intramural sports) is also currently being rebuilt with massive renovations readying for next year’s 2012 season.

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