By MARK TUPPER H&R Executive Sports Editor
BERKELEY, Calif. - There are bigger stadiums, newer stadiums and stadiums with grander reputations. But there is no finer place to watch a college football game than Memorial Stadium on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley.
Built and opened in 1923 at a cost of $1.4 million and dug bowl-like into the ground of the Tilden Regional Park, this stadium was constructed as a tribute to the area's World War I participants and modeled after the Coliseum in Rome. It rests in the picturesque Strawberry Canyon and rising high above the upper rim of the facility is pine-tree covered "Tightwad Hill," where fans who don't want to part with the price of a ticket can climb the steep embankment, sit in the shade and watch the action far below.
That's also where the California Victory Cannon is perched, and it is fired at the beginning of each game, after each Cal score and at the conclusion of each Cal victory. Only once on Sept. 7, 1991 did the cannon run out of ammunition. Cal scored 12 touchdowns in an 86-24 victory over Pacific, and the hillside went uncharacteristically silent. Looking from the stadium to the northwest, there's a panoramic view of the San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, all shrouded in the eerie fog that drapes itself over the Bay Area like an old friend. It doesn't hurt that game-time temperatures are always about 65 degrees with sunshine and a refreshing breeze.
Forget Michigan Stadium, Notre Dame Stadium and "The Horseshoe" in Columbus. In 1997, Sports Illustrated named this as the best place in the country to see a college football game. And so it was in this idyllic setting that a young, building University of Illinois football team climbed onto its proverbial bicycle and rode without training wheels for the first time Saturday. That Illinois collapsed in the second half and let 15th-ranked Cal run off with a 35-20 victory will grate at some critics, and that's fine. But I'm more inclined to focus on the major step forward this team took while completely outplaying Cal throughout the first half, holding a surprising 17-7 lead when the marching band took the field.
Illinois looked like a team that might be difficult to beat in the first half with quarterback Tim Brasic effectively running the offense. I've got a few differences of opinion, but it looks as though offensive coordinator Mike Locksley knows how to call plays. That said, I wish he'd call more of them for Pierre Thomas and somehow work in a series or two for Rashard Mendenhall. These are Illinois' two potential game-breakers, and every play that is distributed in another direction wastes an opportunity for these tailbacks to rip off a long gain.
What Illinois showed in the first half is another reason for hope and, remember, that's what this season is all about. It's about a new head coach giving fans hope for the future, even if he's not able to deliver a half-dozen victories in the process. Zook still has a lot of work to do and fixing major blunders on special teams needs to be high on his lists. Zook is a former NFL special teams coach, and Illinois should be excellent in that regard. But so far, it's been an area of weakness. Zook also needs to be concerned about a defense that in the second half gave up pass receptions of 14, 26, 18 and 21 yards and runs of 15, 14, 15, 16, 15, 29, 12 and 33 yards. That needs to be fixed, too. But I doubt three weeks ago Illinois could have come into this environment and held Cal's feet to the firewell into the third quarter. I know Illinois could not have done it the last two seasons, so progress is being made.
As beautiful as this old arena is, I learned one fact that can unnerve a visitor from the Midwest. A fault line runs directly under the football field and, we were told, a seismic shift at just the wrong moment could bring tragedy to this monument and those inhabiting it at that moment. "Hey, as long as it's not today, you'll be fine," one of the locals told me with a wink. At one point in the fourth quarter, when Cal was making its comeback, I thought I felt the old place shaking. There's that instant when you think, 'Uh-oh, earthquake!" but I suspect it was just Cal's offense coming alive. The next challenge for Zook and the Illini is simple to state, but probably difficult to do. They need to believe they can be as good as they showed for more than a half against Cal, then be that good once Big Ten play begins Saturday against Michigan State. What we witnessed early against Cal was no mirage. Unfortunately, neither was what we saw late.
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