More stadium

In true blogging fashion, I led with opinion Sunday on the lights questions. Here are some facts that didn't make Monday's stadium story (which was not posted over at davisenterprise.com; you web-only readers really only get about a quarter of what we write about UCD sports) for space reasons.

Athletic director Greg Warzecka told me Sunday they were close to a decision on lights. There is a committee trying to find the requisite money to pay for stadium lights. Warzecka is a cautious guy in his public statements, so that, as well as other things I've heard, suggests there are positive developments. No one has shared those developments with me. It's probably a little better than 50-50 that there are lights at some point this year.

Should lights be approved, associate athletic director Bob Bullis estimated it would take four months from the opening of bidding to the completion of installation. If you've followed the whole construction process, you'll know that amounts to a blink of the eye. The opening game is Sept. 1 against Western Washington, so the math on that is not complex. The good news is that stadium is already wired electrically for lights, so the necessary outlets are already built into the stadium infrastructure. That will speed the process. If UCD is forced to play afternoon games in September, I'm told that one thing they can do is run the sprinkler system (I know, sprinklers for an artifical field) over the playing surface just before game time. A splash of water apparently resets the temperature on the playing surface. The field drains really quickly, so that's not really a concern.