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By Ann Tatko, CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Wed, Apr. 10, 2002
April 10, 2002—Don Shaw may coach volleyball at Stanford, but he became a vocal supporter of Cal in efforts to bring the 2012 Olympics to the Bay Area.
Shaw recommended Cal's Haas Pavilion as a favorable site for the men's and women's volleyball matches. An inspection team for the U.S. Olympic Committee agreed during a visit last summer.
And so, the Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee decided to listen to the experts.
Cal and three other Bay Area universities will play a more prominent role in hosting Olympic sports venues if San Francisco wins the bid to host the 2012 Summer Games, according to a 300-page bid addendum that BASOC submitted to the USOC on Monday.
The addenda are a key factor that the USOC will use to select a U.S. candidate city from the four finalists -- Houston, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. -- on Nov. 2. The U.S. winner moves on to the international bid race, with the host city chosen in 2005.
The Bay Area's new plan addresses the USOC's major concern that too many of the sports venues were spread out between Monterey and Sacramento. Originally slated for five sports, Sacramento now will host only rowing and canoe/kayak -- a move that makes it a sports specialty site, much like Napa with mountain biking and Monterey with equestrian.
"We still wanted our plan to provide the best competitive experience for the athletes," BASOC president and CEO Anne Cribbs said. "That's the nice thing about having so many options available in the Bay Area. It was relatively easy to move venues around."
Cal becomes the new epicenter for volleyball, with plans to host indoor at Haas and beach at Edwards Field. The university also will continue to put on regional soccer games. It won't host basketball preliminaries or the handball final, as suggested in BASOC's original 700-page bid proposal, which the committee submitted last summer.
Stanford, San Jose State and Santa Clara University are also a significant part of the new venue plan.
Because of the moves from Sacramento, Stanford will take on archery and Santa Clara will get baseball preliminaries. Stanford also will lose water polo and add swimming, diving and synchronized swimming in a swap with the George Haines International Swim Center in Santa Clara. And San Jose State will pick up tennis from Stanford.
"We are constantly looking ahead to the international phase of winning this bid," said USOC managing director Greg Harney, who is a member of the inspection team. "The (International Olympic Committee) wants to see a bid founded on Olympic ideals, and what represents those ideals better than educational institutions?"
The IOC also traditionally favors a bid that keeps venues within close proximity of the bid city and athletes' Olympic Village.
Under BASOC's new plan, 92 percent of the venues are now within 34 miles of the village at Moffett Field and more than half of them are within 18 miles. Day villages will be provided for the outlying venues in Sacramento, Napa and Monterey.
In bolstering its presence in the host city, BASOC has decided to move the Main Press Center from San Mateo to San Francisco's Moscone Center West and provide the athletes a 24-hour express bus from the village to the city.
BASOC also has taken an active approach in representing the athletes' wishes by staging focus groups with Olympians from Stanford and Cal, Cribbs said.
"Berkeley has so many international Olympians, who provided us with some information unique to their perspective," Cribbs said. "We may not realize how important it is for them to have access to training facilities or to see their families. Their input has allowed us to enhance our plan."
It also has made the universities even more important to the Bay Area's bid.
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