I've been going to USC football games at the Coliseum for 15 years now, and I've defending the stadium to anyone and everyone who will listen.
"Sure, it could use some work, but it's a great stadium. The sight lines are great, and you have such history. Yeah, it could use some sprucing up, but that's what makes it so charming."
But after going to the USC/Ohio State game on Saturday with my wife and daughter, I'm officially giving up on the place. It's time to take the blinders off and realize that I can't defend it anymore - it's a horrible stadium that is in danger of completely falling apart. Not only is it inconvenient and creaky, it's physically dangerous.
(I feel so much better having gotten that off my chest. I feel like Betty from Mad Men, telling Don to leave and don't come home. Excuse me while I put on a party dress and drink a bottle of Wild Turkey.)
First, it's a nightmare getting to your seats. As I heard from dozens of Ohio State fans, "Couldn't they build some escalators to get to the upper seats?" And there are a few, but not nearly enough. Keep in mind these were Ohio State fans we're talking about, with their rigorous Midwestern workout and eating regiments, so take their complaints about physical exhortation at face value.
Then there's the concesison stands. The one I went to didn't take credit card. How is this possible in 2008? And I should point out that the nearest ATM was about a third of the way around the stadium - and not working.
The bathrooms were a nightmare. Basically, in my section, there Blogger: Your Face is a Sports Blog - Create Postis one restroom for men, with two doors - one clearly marked entrance and the other clearly marked exit. But because the line to wait was so huge, people were going in the exit side. Which kind of made sense in one way - the bathrooms are so poorly laid out, that if you come in the regular way, you don't realize there's a whole section of urinals further down no one is using, because you're afraid if you walk past the first section, you'll lose your place.
The problem is that with everyone coming in the wrong way, it makes it impossible to exit. I literally stood in line five minutes to get into the restroom, and at least 10 coming out. Good thing it was an ABC Extend-O-Rama Halftime or else I would have missed the start of the third quarter.
But the real problem is the stadium itself. Nothing sums up how bad things have become more than this story from near the end of the second quarter of the game. My wife is fiddling under her seat to get some food out for our 14-month-old daughter. As she looks behind the seat, she sees a giant Black Widow spider about halfway up the seat. And in case you think there's some over-dramatization taking place here, it was 100 percent a Black Widow - red hourglass spot n the back and everything.
My wife is the strongest person I know, but she hates bugs. (And her dad is an exterminator - go to town on that one, Freud.) So she takes off out of the seats and into the walkway above (our seats were the top row of the first level, so the walkway between levels was directly above us - in fact, the spider had crawled out of a crack in that wall). I'm there standing up holding my baby, which doesn't put me in a great position to do anything.
Some guy a few seats over tried to kill it with his keys, but it crawled into the wall before he could get it. He tried to stuff napkins into the hole to keep it from coming back out. Needless to say, this was not a soilid enough solution for my wife.
Security was called, maintenance reports were filed...it was a mess. We were told that to switch seats, we would have to walk to the ticket office at the other end of the stadium and go through a huge process. The crisis was "solved" when the spider came back out, and our neighbor was able to smasj it with his keys.
But still, Black Widow spiders? Seriously? LIke I said, that's the last straw for me. It's time to do something massive to renovate the place. Or, do it the Mafia way - torch the place and collect the insurance money. If they need it, I know a guy who can do some stuff for them, if you know what I mean.
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