This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
These are the stadiums where my father stunned the Huskies and almost killed Traveler.
The anticipation of having the Utah Utes play regularly in Pac-12 venues brings back memories of being a coach's kid in this league even if I was in my 20s at the time.
I'm looking forward to revisiting all of these campuses, but here are my top six destinations of the Pac-12:
No. 1, Washington • Lake Washington looms beyond the south end zone, the fans are involved from the start and Dave Kragthorpe's Oregon State team beat the Huskies in 1985 as a 37-point underdog. No wonder I love Husky Stadium.
Too bad the Utes will not play on the UW campus until 2014, because of the stadium's renovation project. Next year, Utah will visit CenturyLink Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks.
No. 2, USC • Understand, my father never tells funny stories. Yet in asking for tales of coaching in these stadiums, I did evoke a wry smile and this immediate recollection: "The Coliseum. … The horse."
In three visits to Los Angeles, his teams allowed 63, 48 and 48 points. That's a lot of celebratory trips around the track for Traveler, the famed white horse. There are no reports of the Beavers causing any horses to die, but they may have hastened some retirements. USC now showcases Traveler VII.
No. 3, Colorado • OSU once played a tense, entertaining game with the Buffs in Folsom Field, a striking setting against the Flatirons. What I most remember is getting lost, barely reaching my seat for a noon kickoff, and here comes my wife, proudly carrying a 32-ounce beer from the concession stand.
The school since has curtailed beer sales at the stadium, but Utah offensive coordinator Norm Chow's experience suggests the liquids are still flowing around the league. Colorado should fit in nicely with the rest.
"It's important to play early in the afternoon," Chow said. "The later you play, the wilder that group gets, right?"
No. 4, UCLA • The Rose Bowl is ancient, yet awesome. Houston visited UCLA last season and, as a Cougar assistant told Chow after the game, "I couldn't get my guys to put their cameras away." That covers the allure of a mythical, historic stadium.
No. 5, Cal • Memorial Stadium is in serious need of updating, but the location is lovely. The Bears are playing 2011 home games at the San Francisco Giants' AT&T Park, so the soonest Utah could play in the remodeled Memorial Stadium is 2015. The Pac-12 schedule is skewed, allowing Cal to play USC and UCLA every year.
No. 6, Oregon/Oregon State • While I was stuck in I-5 traffic after the Utes visited Oregon in 2009, the thought struck me that 20 years before, the idea of 105,000 fans attending college football games in Oregon on a Saturday would have seemed ridiculous. That explains this dual entry.
The facility improvements and growth of interest in these programs is stunning maybe more so regarding OSU, actually.
There's a reason my father was voted the 1989 Pac-10 Coach of the Year after a 4-7-1 season. That record was an achievement.
Now that the Beavers are respectable and Oregon is elite, the game-day atmospheres in Corvallis and Eugene are revved up. Utah assistant coach Tim Davis, who worked with Chow at USC, remembers having OSU fans crowd the Trojans' bus on arrival. "It was like running through a gauntlet," Davis said. "They were stopping us. It was great."
I can only say it was about time OSU gave USC some resistance.
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