Breaking: Earthquakes to play at Buck Shaw

By Chris Furnari

The San Jose Earthquakes officially announced their temporary home for the 2008 and 2009 seasons will be Santa Clara's Buck Shaw Stadium.

In a Thursday afternoon press conference, Santa Clara Athletic Director Dan Coonan expressed his excitement in the new partnership with the Earthquakes.

"This is a great day for Santa Clara," said Coonan. "We are thrilled to be embarking on his partnership with the Earthquakes."

Earthquakes president, Michael Crowley, echoed Coonan's words.

"It's certainly a pleasure to be here today to announce our new home for the San Jose Earthquakes, at least on a temporary basis, at Buck Shaw Stadium," said Crowley.

In addition to the announcement that the Earthquakes would be both practicing and playing games at Santa Clara, the club also announced various renovations that will be made beginning in mid-November.

According to Crowley, the project will include renovating Stanton Field, which is currently used as a practice facility for both the men and women's collegiate teams.

Artwork on display at the press conference highlighted the improvements, which will feature increased seating at Buck Shaw Stadium as well as a new artificial practice field. According to Crowley, roughly 5,000 temporary seats will be added to Buck Shaw Stadium, giving the venue an approximate 12,000-seat capacity.

Because of the current location of the interim library, the proposed additional seating is expected to be erected as soon as the building of the new library is completed said Joe Sugg, Vice President of University of Operations.

Also included in the plans is the installation of a portable state-of-the-art digital video board and renovations to the lighting at Buck Shaw Stadium.

"The lights are pretty good, but we have to upgrade them for broadcast quality," Crowley said.

While Coonan could not discuss the exact financial arrangement in the new partnership with the Earthquakes, he did discuss some alternative reasons for the decision.

"They have made it significantly worth our while financially," said Coonan. "It is a great relationship and it does so many things for us in terms of visibility and enhances our profile."

According to Coonan, the partnership makes sense for the Broncos financially as fundraising for some of the renovations would have taken a significantly longer amount of time.

"We would have had to go out and raise a ton of money, and some of the things that we are doing might have been somewhat challenging," said Coonan. "I think we could have done it but it would have taken some time."

Other notable individuals in attendance included San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and former Bronco star Brandi Chastain.

Contact Chris Furnari at (408) 554-4546 or cfurnari@scu.edu.