There is no long flight followed by a longer bus ride to the middle of nowhere. The weather isn't cold, and fans aren't screaming everything imaginable during the walk from the locker room to the field.
Yet, beyond the obvious discrepancies, UCLA knows a very painful similarity exists between a trip to out-of-the-way Pullman, Washington, and a quick flight and bus ride to play at Stanford.
History says both places create big headaches.
PHOTO: AP
The Bruins already exorcised their Washington State demons during a trip to Martin Stadium earlier this month, and next on the list is the surprising Cardinal today at Stanford Stadium.
Before an overtime win at Wazzu two weeks ago, the eighth-ranked Bruins (7-0, 4-0 Pacific-10 Conference) last won on the Palousse in 1993. When it comes to cavernous Stanford Stadium, success has been fleeting for the Bruins, who lost their past three games on the Farm, including a painful 10-point loss in 2001 when UCLA was ranked fourth in the nation.
"I don't know what makes it [so difficult]," UCLA coach Karl Dorrell said. "People ask that, but it is not like Pullman. It's not like any other loud place. It is not the crowd noise. It's just the experience, I guess. The crowd is not right on you, and you've got the track [circling the field], the stands are so far away. It is just a different feel."
It creates, in fact, an uncomfortable, very non-college feel, and the apathy toward the program these days doesn't help.
Stanford Stadium holds 85,000, but the Cardinal is averaging a league-low 30,217 per game.
"I remember you could hear a needle drop," senior linebacker Justin London said about UCLA's visit two years ago. "We've gotten the team prepared for that environment. We understand that's the opposite of the environment we've been in.
"It's really mental. You know it's going to be quiet and we're going to have to bring our own noise, and we're a team tight enough to do that. It's going to be fun to go up there and win this game and celebrate amongst each other."
Stanford administration acknowledged the problems of the Stadium, which was built in 1921, when it decided to spend US$85 million to US$90 million to renovate the building after the season. The track will be eliminated, allowing the stands to be brought closer to the field, and capacity will be reduced to 50,000.
However, that does little to change the current ambiance, which Bruins tailback Maurice Drew said "seems like a high school game" earlier this week.
"They're a weird program," UCLA senior linebacker Spencer Havner said. "Their band is weird. The band wears trees, and they're jumping around. Their stands are weird. It seems like a big stadium with not so many people all the time. It's quiet. That means we have to bring our own energy."
UCLA's veterans, who played in the 21-14 loss in 2003 on the Farm, said they know how to handle the non-hostile, garden-party atmosphere.
"This year's team is self-motivated," UCLA senior tight end Marcedes Lewis said. "I think there's enough guys on this team that are self-motivated to get those that are not, motivated."
But playing Stanford, be it in the Bay Area or in Pasadena, hasn't led to good things for the Bruins. In fact, the Stanford game has ignited the infamous UCLA late-season collapse the past five years.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier