In a tour of the locker rooms while they were being built, my guide did say they were intentionally making it threadbare for the opposing team as a psychological ploy. I think it just makes the organization look petty and cheap.
Is this referring to the aforementioned referees' locker room being the smallest and worst as well? GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
Horrible! BTW - a couple of weeks ago, I was reffing a girls’ friendly tournament featuring a number of top U13 teams at Stanton field (the turf field between Buck Shaw and the Levy Center) and noticed that it’s apparently now called Stevens Stadium.
They only upgraded the stadium. The locker rooms remained the same. Interestingly, the referees were often consigned to the women’s locker room. I rarely heard a complaint!
Apart from allegedly being too small (which is an elastic concept), what's the actual problem with the visitors' locker room at Avaya that violates the implied warranty of habitability?
If we're going to adopt a "F**K YOU I GOT MINE" attitude (as is so prevalent in the United Sociopaths of America these days), at the very least that make the inevitable post-game "waah the referees are biased against my team" complaints a bit laughable...
It doesn't violate any implied warranty of habitability, it just says, "we can save money building this like a junior high school locker room", and "hey, we're assholes".
Is there a possibility that we’ve swapped locker rooms with visitors? That could explain why we look so uncomfortable at home.
To add to this, regarding the sub-par visiting team locker rooms: Some of us have been complaining for years that the Quakes don't do enough to add undervalued talent from around MLS. At his Q&A I mentioned to Jesse that we haven't been doing that at all since he took over, and suggested he go after a guy like Kelyn Rowe. We added Quintana and Qwiberg who both take up international slots and look like busts, whereas the Red Bulls traded within MLS for Tim Parker and fixed their defense. Kaval said one of the benefits of the new stadium was that the improved facilities would attract signings. That may work for foreign players, but will MLS players exposed to the crappy visiting team locker room want to come here? Talk about not thinking things through.
I've been mentally collecting the unhelpful adjectives about the Avaya visitors' locker room: "small" (bsman); "threadbare" (Earthshaker); and "crappy" (xbhaskarx). Meanwhile, we have an admission of habitability (Earthshaker), so the Avaya visitors' locker room is functional and not unhealthy. There have been no complaints from opposing coaches akin to Jim-Harbaugh-visits-Purdue. I can therefore only conclude that the opprobrium arises because the Avaya visitors' locker room is neither lavish nor the equal of the Quakes' locker room. Whoop-de-doo. The visitors should be glad they get to sit in ersatz leather chairs, instead of along a wooden bench, while watching the game. Wooden benches are also functional and (save for the occasional splinter) not inherently unhealthy. I have fond memories of them from Buck Shaw. When I was a high school bench-warmer nearly 40 years ago, there were no actual benches on the sidelines, so I didn't get to sit at all. And a single forked peg substituted for my locker. We put on our uniforms and then jumped on a school bus to take us to our road matches, Once the bus driver, who lacked GPS or a mobile phone (because they weren't available yet), got lost and stopped at a roadside cider stand to ask where the town of Wheatfield was. Meanwhile, I hear these poor MLS wretches are forced to fly coach all the way to Mineta San Jose.
Don, your comparison of your high school experiences to what a professional athlete should expect is inept, inapt, and inappropriate. You’ve got your opinion, but your personal experience has no credence as an argument.
Your conclusion that the visitors' locker room is "embarrassing," without explaining why, is not convincing. I have been in the visitors' locker room and seen it for myself.