Long-time poster using a different account so I can get real for a moment.
I attended my first Cal basketball game of this season tonight. Observations:
1). Less than 3 minutes after the game ended, when the band had just started playing its first post-game song, I was asked to get up and leave Haas by a security guard who was clearing out the crowd. The teams were literally still on the court shaking hands and security was trying to shoo me out the door. I rather coldly told security woman that I enjoy listening to the band's post game songs and I waved her off. About two minutes later, when the band was playing their second post game song (this is only about five minutes after the final bell), security man comes up to me and asks me to leave the arena. At this point, I'm pretty pissed off, and I explained to security man that I was going to listen to the ****ing band play a few songs whether he liked it or not. At that point, my fun, relaxing experience was pretty much ruined, my blood pressure was up, and I couldn't enjoy the band's third song (which was, I believe, Hail to California) as I had two security idiots glaring at me. Knowlton, are you listening? For what I pay for a ticket, I can't relax after the game for 10-15 minutes without being hassled by your GD security theater people? Wow. Maybe this is just a business, nothing else...just whisk the paying folks out the door as quickly as possible. What a crappy business model.
2). There were few enough people at the game that I actually attempted to count the crowd. I'd guess maybe 1,100. Depressing. Average age was about 55, with virtually no families or young kids. Dead silent environment until the crowd rallied with about one minute left in the game. I grew up in the Kidd/Abdur-Rahim era, and we've had some good teams since then as well. All I can say is Cal is doing something very wrong, and may never recover from Williams/Jones. Haas is a kinda sad place these days.
3). They've draped the big "California" banner below the American flag, where it rests on a platform and partially covers the names of Cal men's and women's teams that are painted on a platform. It looks sloppy, like no-one running the facility really gives a ***** And very noticeable in the sterile, plain rafters of the arena is the lack of the championship banners and retired player jerseys that used to hang proudly, items that would restore some character to the place. It is such a no-brainer that they should be hung back up it just depresses me that nobody at Cal seems to care.
4). Each corner of the scoreboard shows the players' numbers and their stats. Yet, when a Cal player scores and is running back up the court, that is EXACTLY when I always (used to) take a quick glance to see how many points that player has. However, the genius that runs the scoreboard has chosen to grey-out those corner stat boards with a grey "Cal" logo that lasts for about 10 seconds right after anybody scores, just long enough to ruin the purpose of the stats board. Nice work, fella.
5). We have a problem with many different shades of yellow/gold going on. Most noticeable is the "Make More Noise" thing that flashes on the main scoreboard. It is a very bright shade of yellow that is completely wrong for Cal and again, it makes you shake your head and wonder if the person running the place gives a *****
6). Credit to the Cal band for bringing much needed energy tonight. They're a huge part of the reason I still go to games. That said, the fact that they can't start playing Immediately upon a break in the action but instead have to wait with their thumbs up their asses while we all stare at screen time on the scoreboard (like any of us needs more screen time) while Cal and idiot Learfield remind us who is on the seemingly endless list of "game day sponsors" is depressing. Any spontaneity and momentum has been stripped from the game day experience. And, on a side note, I'm a bit surprised to see how much red is tolerated in the band, from a solid red Santa hand puppet someone was holding to red buttons on the vests to red hat decorations. Smh.
7). 8pm games suck. I got home to the Danville area via BART and parking at Orinda BART at 11:300pm. It's no wonder there's no families or young kids at the game. Who wants to get home at 11:30?
8). Sorry to be so negative. It's just I am having trouble reconciling two-plus decades of fun, sometimes elite basketball that I've enjoyed at Harmon/Haas that I was brought up on with what I saw out there tonight. The team has two legitimate players on it: Bradley and Harris-Dyson. That's it. I'll stop there as there's no point in denigrating the players. But if Fox can't recruit more fun, athletic players, this ain't gonna change, folks. This board can claim that "stars don't matter" all it wants but that's simply wrong.
I'll stop now. But a warning to Knowlton: tell your security folks to give people 15 minutes to bask in a win (or loss). If you don't fix that, I might never be back. And my name is on the GD wall of Haas as a (minor) donor.
Go Bears.
I attended my first Cal basketball game of this season tonight. Observations:
1). Less than 3 minutes after the game ended, when the band had just started playing its first post-game song, I was asked to get up and leave Haas by a security guard who was clearing out the crowd. The teams were literally still on the court shaking hands and security was trying to shoo me out the door. I rather coldly told security woman that I enjoy listening to the band's post game songs and I waved her off. About two minutes later, when the band was playing their second post game song (this is only about five minutes after the final bell), security man comes up to me and asks me to leave the arena. At this point, I'm pretty pissed off, and I explained to security man that I was going to listen to the ****ing band play a few songs whether he liked it or not. At that point, my fun, relaxing experience was pretty much ruined, my blood pressure was up, and I couldn't enjoy the band's third song (which was, I believe, Hail to California) as I had two security idiots glaring at me. Knowlton, are you listening? For what I pay for a ticket, I can't relax after the game for 10-15 minutes without being hassled by your GD security theater people? Wow. Maybe this is just a business, nothing else...just whisk the paying folks out the door as quickly as possible. What a crappy business model.
2). There were few enough people at the game that I actually attempted to count the crowd. I'd guess maybe 1,100. Depressing. Average age was about 55, with virtually no families or young kids. Dead silent environment until the crowd rallied with about one minute left in the game. I grew up in the Kidd/Abdur-Rahim era, and we've had some good teams since then as well. All I can say is Cal is doing something very wrong, and may never recover from Williams/Jones. Haas is a kinda sad place these days.
3). They've draped the big "California" banner below the American flag, where it rests on a platform and partially covers the names of Cal men's and women's teams that are painted on a platform. It looks sloppy, like no-one running the facility really gives a ***** And very noticeable in the sterile, plain rafters of the arena is the lack of the championship banners and retired player jerseys that used to hang proudly, items that would restore some character to the place. It is such a no-brainer that they should be hung back up it just depresses me that nobody at Cal seems to care.
4). Each corner of the scoreboard shows the players' numbers and their stats. Yet, when a Cal player scores and is running back up the court, that is EXACTLY when I always (used to) take a quick glance to see how many points that player has. However, the genius that runs the scoreboard has chosen to grey-out those corner stat boards with a grey "Cal" logo that lasts for about 10 seconds right after anybody scores, just long enough to ruin the purpose of the stats board. Nice work, fella.
5). We have a problem with many different shades of yellow/gold going on. Most noticeable is the "Make More Noise" thing that flashes on the main scoreboard. It is a very bright shade of yellow that is completely wrong for Cal and again, it makes you shake your head and wonder if the person running the place gives a *****
6). Credit to the Cal band for bringing much needed energy tonight. They're a huge part of the reason I still go to games. That said, the fact that they can't start playing Immediately upon a break in the action but instead have to wait with their thumbs up their asses while we all stare at screen time on the scoreboard (like any of us needs more screen time) while Cal and idiot Learfield remind us who is on the seemingly endless list of "game day sponsors" is depressing. Any spontaneity and momentum has been stripped from the game day experience. And, on a side note, I'm a bit surprised to see how much red is tolerated in the band, from a solid red Santa hand puppet someone was holding to red buttons on the vests to red hat decorations. Smh.
7). 8pm games suck. I got home to the Danville area via BART and parking at Orinda BART at 11:300pm. It's no wonder there's no families or young kids at the game. Who wants to get home at 11:30?
8). Sorry to be so negative. It's just I am having trouble reconciling two-plus decades of fun, sometimes elite basketball that I've enjoyed at Harmon/Haas that I was brought up on with what I saw out there tonight. The team has two legitimate players on it: Bradley and Harris-Dyson. That's it. I'll stop there as there's no point in denigrating the players. But if Fox can't recruit more fun, athletic players, this ain't gonna change, folks. This board can claim that "stars don't matter" all it wants but that's simply wrong.
I'll stop now. But a warning to Knowlton: tell your security folks to give people 15 minutes to bask in a win (or loss). If you don't fix that, I might never be back. And my name is on the GD wall of Haas as a (minor) donor.
Go Bears.
