IM Field closure forces campus to make adjustments

By Christina Teller
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s
gone.

With the Intramural Field unavailable until 2002-2003 due to the
construction of a parking structure underneath, the UCLA community
will be without the largest open field space on campus.

The new parking structure will better accommodate events at both
Royce Hall and Pauley Pavilion.

The nine acres of IM field, which was divided into six fields
running north and south, accommodated up to 200 intramural football
teams, seven club teams, the UCLA band and various other student
activities. In the past, club teams were given time on the North
Athletic Field in addition to time on the IM field.

Accommodating the same amount of recreational activity on the
NAF, which is approximately one-third the size of the IM field, is
what Chad Brown, program director for Cultural and Recreational
Affairs-Intramural and Club Sports, and Val Castro, assistant
program director, had to do.

And in doing so, the directors have partitioned the NAF into
three fields running east and west for all practices, with the
exception of the band, which occupies the entire NAF during
practice. For the next two years, teams will practice on fields
that are smaller than regulation size.

“Teams probably will not lose any opportunities.
They’re only losing space through the configuration of the
field for practice,” Brown said. “They’re still
getting the same amount of time that they previously were.
Everything that was here last year is going to be here this year,
just modified,” Brown added.

For example, IM flag football will be played four-on-four
instead of seven-on-seven, and all IM soccer leagues will play on a
smaller field.

And while Brown and Castro have been figuring out how to
accommodate the same number of activities that they always have,
club sports representatives have been trying to figure out how to
get the same amount of practice time, knowing that so many other
groups need that same space.

“Practice is essential in order for our team to be
competitive,” said Mike Montgomery, a captain for the
men’s lacrosse team. “It’s very frustrating,
being in my fourth and final year, because we have a lot of
potential this year, and it would be sad if our team’s
success is hindered by lack of practice space.”

In previous years, the men’s lacrosse team was given two
days a week on the NAF, and they practiced on the IM field during
the rest of the week. On days when the NAF was too wet to play on,
club teams almost always had the IM field as a back-up.

This is not the case anymore.

Rescheduling is a concern that women’s lacrosse president
Victoria Bohannan cited.

“(Rescheduling) was hard enough with field space
available, but now it’s going to be even harder,”
Bohannan said. “I know that it’s a bad situation for
everyone, and it’s frustrating because there’s not
really anything they can do about it.”

With the increase in traffic on the NAF, field condition is
another concern shared by club teams.

“When you have all the club sports training and working
out on one field, it impacts field maintenance,”
women’s rugby coach Tam Breckenridge said. “There
doesn’t seem that there will be a lot of
flexibility.”

And varsity teams have been affected too. The men’s and
women’s soccer teams now practice and play on Marshall Field,
the grass at Drake Stadium.

A parking structure beneath a field is not a new idea. Currently
there is parking underneath both the NAF and the courtyard between
Men’s Gym and the Dance Building.

But the idea of taking away the only free field space on campus
for two years seemed impractical at first.

According to Mick Deluca, director of the CRA department, it was
when the long-term gains, such as state-of-the-art turf and full
lighting of the field, were assessed that the costs and the gains
balanced out.

Lighting would add three to four hours a day of playing time,
and better irrigation and drainage systems would cut down on the
days the IM field is not able to be used.

“The IM field in its old existing condition was not a
great playing field,” Deluca said. “It was unleveled,
the drainage was poor and the irrigation system was
outdated.”

State-of-the-art turf and updated irrigation are very important
to the condition of the field, but what Deluca cited as most
important about the improvements of the IM field is that it means
that the IM field will remain a playing field.

“It pretty much guarantees that it will always be a
playing field, and it won’t be a building,” Deluca
said, “which is a big deal in trying to preserve open playing
space.”

On a campus that has the least amount of playing field space
available of any college or university with over 30,000 students,
this is a big deal.

And in the meantime, the UCLA recreation staff will creatively
adapt to the space that is available.

Brown said that the grass at Sunset Recreation, as well as the
space between the Men’s Gym and the Dance Building, will be
possible practice sites. Marshall Field will also be available for
use by IM and club teams during winter and spring quarters.

Brown and Castro have come up with creative solutions to the
space-restriction problem. A seven-on-seven flag football
tournament that would be held at Spaulding Field, the football
practice field, and a slow-pitch softball tournament at Jackie
Robinson Stadium are possibilities.

Pauley Pavilion and the John Wooden Center will be used as
indoor facilities for IM sports such as wiffle ball and indoor
soccer.

Though the UCLA community is without a major recreation resource
for at least two years, the finished result is expected to be
better than before.