Mark Patton: UCSB Facing a Facility Crisis in Both Baseball and Aquatics

The language of sports is often spoken in clichés.

But these next two prosaisms sound more like profanity to UC Santa Barbara’s Gauchos:

“The carpet may get pulled out from under them” in baseball, and “the well has gone dry” for them in aquatics.

Translated into plain English, that means that Caesar Uyesaka Stadium may be denied its new turf field … and leaky, old Campus Pool has been shut down — perhaps for good.

The baseball stadium was skinned of every blade of grass last summer in preparation for an artificial surface. The place, however, remains a sandlot three months later.

The California chapter of the Sierra Club threw a curveball at UCSB earlier this fall by raising its objection to the $2.8 million project.

Its opposition prompted the California Coastal Commission to remove the proposal from its September consent calendar and postpone any further action until its Dec. 13 meeting in Santa Cruz.

That was the week that the project was supposed to have been completed.

Kelly Barsky, UCSB’s director of athletics, refused to add any negative spin to that curveball when contacted by Noozhawk.

“What I can speak to is more just the steps,” she said. “This fall, we’ve been working through an upgrade of the field, which includes playing surface, draining systems and dugouts.

“Our next step is to present to the Coastal Commission the review of the project this month.”

She expressed no complaints or even frustration about the delay, although insiders say she is working hard to gain approval for the project. The Coastal Commission posed 10 questions that it wanted UCSB to address.

Figuring out productive practice plans for January and February, in the meantime, has become a logistical nightmare for the Gauchos.

The contractor has reportedly assured UCSB that enough time remains for it to finish the drainage work and lay down both the base layer and turf before the Gauchos’ Feb. 23 home opener against Sacramento State.

But if the Coastal Commission says no, or even extends a decision into more extra innings, UCSB’s baseball season could become an unprecedented mess of complications.

No other adequate facility would be available for the Gauchos.

They wrapped up their fall workouts last week on the artificial turf of the Rec Center’s soccer fields.

“Westmont College was really kind to us and let us utilize their field on Tuesdays and Thursdays for scrimmages,” UCSB baseball coach Andrew Checketts said.

“That won’t be able to continue once we get into January, so we’ve got to figure out some other scheduling stuff to do some scrimmaging.”

Diamond in the Rough

The Gauchos, which are allowed to scrimmage two colleges during the fall, played both on the road — at Loyola Marymount and Pepperdine.

“We played OK … We didn’t play great at LMU,” Checketts said. “We’re a little behind offensively, and a lot of that just has to do with the training setup.

“It’s hard to replicate some of the things in the game-situation stuff that we’d normally be able to on a field. We started to catch up toward the end of the fall offensively.”

The new turf field wouldn’t have been ready for fall workouts even if the Coastal Commission had given the green light three months ago.

But to be further denied its diamond would drop a gigantic lump of coal into the Gauchos’ Christmas stocking.

A team that shows the same promise of its 2016 College World Series club could see its season ignite into a dumpster fire.

The Sierra Club’s opposition blindsided the university like a 100-mph beanball.

Converting three acres of grass with artificial turf seemed like an eco-positive move in a coastal zone that suffers periodically from extreme drought.

Local officials give home owners a medal when they rip out their lawn. But the only reaction that UCSB has received reads more like a cease-and-desist notice.

UCSB’s Bermuda grass field had to be maintained with massive amounts of potable water as well as fertilizer, especially during its winter dormancy.

The “Notice of Impending Development” submitted to the Coastal Commission laid out the “rationale” of converting the field to artificial turf:

“The proposed development is minor in nature and will serve to reduce water usage and maintenance required at the existing baseball stadium.

“Minimal grading will be required for installation of new on-site drainage system, and the project has been designed to ensure that sand, rubber or other field materials are blocked from entering this drainage system.”

UCSB opted for an environmentally friendly wood particle infill instead of the usual crumb rubber for the artificial grass.

The infill, produced by BrockFILL of Boulder, Colorado, is specifically designed to improve traction and reduce heat on the surface.

The Sierra Club asked for additional analysis relating to “the potential impacts” that might include “plastic degradation, microplastic migration, chemical leaching, water quality impacts, and project-related water demand and sustainability aspects, among others.”

UCSB had scientific, environmentally conscious responses to all the questions.

Unless the final deciders are simple baseball purists who have the same disdain of artificial turf as they do the designated hitter rule, a denial of the project would be a real head-scratcher.

Santa Barbara City College received approval to replace its rubber-based, artificial turf at La Playa Stadium just a few years ago, and it’s within a football throw of the ocean.

Checketts just wants a field that doesn’t turn into a muddy quagmire at the start of every season. Much of last year’s preseason workouts, as well as six home games, were canceled because of heavy rainfall.

“College baseball is a different season than Major League Baseball,” he explained when UCSB broke ground on the project. “We play earlier, so we’re training in January … We’re playing games in February.

“That’s when the majority of the rain hits Santa Barbara, so it will be a nice advantage for us to be able to practice when the weather hits.”

The baseball turf and dugout project are part of a $6 million master plan to upgrade 30-year-old Uyesaka Stadium as well as UCSB’s long-neglected softball facility next door.

It would include a new video board, restrooms, concession stands, and an “All-American Way” to honor past Gaucho greats.

Watering Hole

Nothing at UCSB has been neglected longer than Campus Pool.

The Olympic-sized facility was built there for the U.S. Marine Corps during the construction of its World War II air base in 1943 — more than a decade before the university moved to the site.

Although the fractured relic has leaked into the ground for decades, it became untenable before the start of this year’s fall term.

Officials decided to red-tag it before any swimmer or water polo player spiraled down into the water table.

It’s not easy to put a positive spin on that, but Barsky does prefer to walk the sunny side of the pool deck.

“It went offline just prior to men’s water polo season,” she said. “Immediately, our campus — not just athletics, but the campus and community partners, too — went into a mode of ensuring that we stabilize and support the programs right away.”

The men’s water polo team was limited to six home matches this fall — three of which were played across the Goleta Valley at Dos Pueblos High School’s Elings Aquatics Center and the other three across town at Santa Barbara High School.

Workouts were conducted at such places as the Rec Center Pool and Westmont. But UCSB’s student-governed Rec Center, so far, has not permitted any matches to be played there.

The women’s water polo team, which opens its season next month, as well as the men’s and women’s swim teams, are facing similar challenges in their scheduling.

“I really am incredibly appreciative of all the different groups who’ve jumped in and given us pool time or supported all of the needs of those programs,” Barsky said.

“We’ve been able to be up and running and really provide experiences while having a runway — a very short one — to put plans in place here.”

Campus Pool, she added, has not yet been permanently closed.

“We’ve been working closely with our facilities group and evaluating whether or not it can come back online,” she said. “Regardless, we’re going to have to work toward the development of the next stages of a new pool.”

Plans for a new swimming pool have been on UCSB’s drawing board for decades. The most recent design was created in 2010.

But no substantial donor has turned on the spigot of financial support.

“We’re looking at those renderings and the information that was provided at that time,” Barsky said. “There’s a lot of updated work that needs to happen around the scoping of that type of project.

“We certainly know that it’s needed. We’re looking at all of the options and opportunities. It’s likely going to take some stacked funding to support building a new pool.”

Until then, the endless drip, drip, drip at the pit known as Campus Pool will serve the Gauchos as nothing more than an endless session of water torture.