Oakland Tribune: Cal will unveil long-awaited stadium plans

By Dave Newhouse, STAFF WRITER 

BERKELEY — Football coach Jeff Tedford committed last December to remaining at Cal contractually through 2009, but only on the condition that 82-year-old Memorial Stadium be renovated.  His faith has been rewarded.  On Thursday, UC Berkeley chancellor Robert Birgeneau will unveil highlights of a master plan for an upgraded stadium that will also benefit the law school and business school on campus.  The master plan includes a landscape design and a public open space plan. The retrofitting is long overdue because the stadium sits directly on the Hayward Fault.  "It will be great news," Tedford said Tuesday, saving the rest of his comments for Thursday.  

REMEMBER 2003: USC's last defeat, 31 games ago, was a 34-31 triple-overtime loss at Cal two years ago. USC coach Pete Carroll hasn't forgotten what went wrong that day.  "It was a great stadium that day. They played great and deserved to win it," he said. "We didn't play well, turned the ball over, did all kinds of things. If we play like that, we'll get beat by anybody.  "I was disappointed that day because we got a little sidetracked in our preparation. We arrived 45 minutes early and sat around. I found myself standing at the top of the stadium looking at Marin County, waving toward home, crazy stuff, just killing time. We kind of lost our edge, our focus. And that locker room isn't the nicest.  "But I'm not making any excuse. That's the last thing I want to do. ... So, this time, we're going to go up and down Telegraph Avenue until the time's right before we go to the stadium."  

HAPPY HALLOWEEN: To keep his USC team loose, Carroll pulled off a Halloween prank together with running back LenDale White, but without the knowledge of the other coaches and players. White threw a fit at practice, complaining that he wasn't getting enough carries because of Reggie Bush. White stormed off the field, saying he had quit the team. Later on, a stuffed body in cardinal and gold with White's No.21 was thrown off a nearby building as the team looked on.

"We were just having fun," Carroll said. "We have our ways of doing things. We haven't wavered for years on how we do things. It's how we deal with the mentality, because every week we're asked to look ahead, or about history. We're about practicing really well, a moment-to-moment focus." Does that mean some more pranks? "There may be a couple left," Carroll said. "Every now and then, the boys need something to shake them up."

BLOCK PARTY: One Cal weapon USC must account for isn't a starter. He's sophomore safety Thomas DeCoud, who has blocked six kicks in his brief career — three field goals, two extra-points and a punt.  "I guess it's my explosiveness off the line on punts, and my ability to leap high on kicks," said DeCoud, who has a 37-inch vertical leap and a 4.43 time in the 40.  His blocked punt last Saturday at Oregon led directly to a Cal touchdown. What would a seventh block mean against the Trojans?  "That would be huge," he said. "On a national stage, and it would be a great momentum boost for us."  Are teams scheming more against DeCoud as his blocked kicks mount?  "Not very well," he said.