Slow Week For Cal Football

Since there’s not much going on right now, I’ve compiled a list of Cal-related articles for your enjoyment.

 

Stanford lifts band suspension

Mercury News

Strike up the band! The lunatics of the Stanford Marching Band have been released from the asylum and will be loosed (sic) upon football fields again this fall.

And while history may suggest otherwise, they promise to be good this time.  Stanford University announced Monday it had lifted the band's indefinite provisional status, imposed in September after the band was suspended July 18 for vandalism and other bad behavior.  Read the entire article here.

 

Ex-Cal rugby player accused of fracturing S.F. student's skull

SF Chronicle

A former Cal rugby player has been charged with felony battery in an attack that fractured the skull of a San Francisco State student outside a UC Berkeley co-op on the same day the team won the national championship, authorities said Monday.  James Sehr, 22, of Elk Grove was charged in Alameda County Superior Court with felony battery causing great bodily injury in connection with last month's incident that severely injured Charles "Chaz" Rochon.  At about 9:30 p.m. May 5, Rochon was eating dinner with his housemates at the Andres Castro Arms cooperative at 2310 Prospect St. near the Memorial Stadium when someone broke a window at the building, said Berkeley police Lt. Wes Hester.  Read the entire article here.

 

Court Dates Set For Oak Grove Lawsuits

Berkeley Daily Planet

The lawsuits aimed at saving the grove at California Memorial Stadium are consuming a few trees of their own as the blizzard of paperwork continues in the leadup to an eventual courtroom showdown.  The pulp friction that’s headed for the courtroom showdown centers on the university’s grandiose building plans embodied in the Southeast Campus Integrated Projects, an architectural extravaganza that will result in three new buildings and expansion of the stadium, with a total new build-out equivalent to a third of the size of the Empire State Building.  The immediate issue is the Student Athlete High Performance Center, a four-story high-tech gymnasium and office planned along the western wall of the venerable stadium.  During a court conference, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Barbara J. Miller confirmed the Sept. 19-20 courtroom date for hearing the case, and set dates for depositions and submissions of paperwork in the case.

The California Oaks Foundation, Panoramic Hill Association and the City of Berkeley are all challenging the university’s plans for a series of massive development projects at and around California Memorial Stadium, a city landmark and an entry on the rolls of the National Register of Historic Places.  Approval by the UC Regents of the environmental impact report on the Southeast Campus Integrated Projects (SCIP) last December was followed a month later by the lawsuits, each challenging the regents’ action on similar grounds—though reflecting the somewhat differing interests of tree advocates, neighbors living near the project and a cash-strapped city.  The gym is the first of the projects slated for construction, and the lawsuits forced at least a year’s delay, which UC Berkeley Vice Chancellor Ed Denton has said will cost the school at least $8 million to $10 million.  Construction had been planned to commence with the demolition of the grove of Coastal Live Oaks along the stadium’s western wall, which triggered both the lawsuits and an ongoing tree-sit that continues into its seventh month.  The logging operation would have been followed by excavations for the four-story gym and office complex. Both were halted by the lawsuits and a subsequent injunction granted by the judge.   A since-completed university-funded seismic study contends there are no active earthquake faults under the gym site, so the university argues that construction should commence. Attorneys for the plaintiffs say they are challenging the study’s adequacy and also say the presence or lack of a fault immediately under the gym site is only one of several key legal issues.

 

Devon Hardin Withdraws From Draft, Stays for Senior Year

Contra Costa Times

DeVON HARDIN has always been a pretty smart and stable guy. He was a 4.0 student at Newark Memorial High School and a young man who clearly understood the value and importance of getting a college education at a place like Cal. What's more, Hardin always has had a strong family behind him, supporting the tough decision-making processes a 6-foot-11 basketball prodigy has to make.  That's why it seemed so strange when another Bay Area newspaper reported Sunday that Hardin had hired an agent and was ready to take the NBA draft plunge despite uncertain prospects that he would be a first-round pick.  Thankfully, those reports were erroneous. Hardin will be returning to Cal for his senior season, which is great news for coach Ben Braun and the Bears but an even better development for Hardin. Quite likely, he will make himself a significantly richer man a year from now than he would have had he decided to take the gamble of turning professional now.

Read the entire article here.

 

On a purely personal note…

If anyone can provide me information regarding handicap access at Cal home games, please email me at demichael@gmail.com.  My father has attended Cal games since the 40’s, but is now battling Parkinson’s Disease.  He’d like to attend the Tennessee opener, but I don’t know how it would work with a wheelchair.  Unfortunately, the Cal athletic department has been no help whatsoever.  I’ve called several times and have not been given an answer, and I even emailed Sandy Barbour, as well as several other athletic department directors, but have not even had the courtesy of a reply.  If you know what the procedure is for watching the game in a wheelchair (are there special tickets?  Is it possible for me to sit with him?) please let me know.  Thanks in advance, and beat those Vols!