happen

The idea of an on-campus football stadium was floated again last week, like it has been so many times over the years at UCLA.

It hasn’t mattered if the Bruins were playing home games at the Coliseum or the Rose Bowl, the pitch has always been the same — the school needs to follow the example of almost every other team in the country and move back onto campus.

The latest proposal came from L. Carlos Simental, a lawyer and UCLA alumnus. Simental wrote an editorial in the Daily Bruin contending that the school should construct a donor-funded, 45,000-seat stadium on the site of the Drake Stadium track and field facility.

Such a move, Simental wrote, would capitalize on the excitement created by the hiring of coach Bob Chesney while also helping UCLA reclaim its athletic identity and compete in the Big Ten. Furthermore, Simental argued, the usual excuses about wealthy neighbors quashing such a move over noise and traffic concerns don’t hold sway because it’s ultimately up to the UC Regents.

This all sounded like a plausible plan, so I contacted someone with a comprehensive understanding of UCLA’s history and operations on the westside of Los Angeles to have a breakfast meeting.

What that person went on to say should probably put this idea to rest for at least the next quarter century, saving everybody from getting excited over nothing — particularly with the school apparently intent on a move to SoFi Stadium unless it’s blocked by the courts.

“It just ain’t going to happen,” said John Sandbrook, who was a UCLA assistant chancellor under Charles Young and a central figure in the school’s move from the Coliseum to the Rose Bowl before the 1982 season.

Among other things, Sandbrook said, the practical realities from an architectural standpoint make an on-campus stadium nearly impossible. Construction would necessitate losing a major portion of the underground Parking Structure 7 and at least one-third of the recreational fields, not to mention cutting into the tennis stadium and Bruin Walk to accommodate the southern part of a new, expanded football stadium.

There would have to be a new service tunnel into the stadium from Charles Young Drive north and a new entryway into Parking Structure 7. A dedicated access lane to nearby Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, the primary trauma center on the westside, would have to be created, further snarling traffic.

“You are basically blowing up things and having to rebuild it,” Sandbrook said. “You don’t say for the sake of six football games a year, ‘We’re going to do all these things.’ ”

Enhanced stadium lighting would be a potential nuisance to the campus and the surrounding neighborhood. And those neighbors that Simental dismissed as powerless could rally behind the California Environmental Quality Act, which does apply to UCLA. There’s also the matter of a proposed Metropolitan Transit Authority subway line that could run under campus, with a stop near the Luskin Center. Might that make the excavations needed to construct a football stadium impossible?

The list of potential issues doesn’t stop there. Space constraints could curtail the installation of a comfortably sized concourse, and who’s going to pay for stadium maintenance?

(For argument’s sake, Sandbrook said it was far more plausible to construct a stadium on the site of the Federal Building and Westwood Park, should that area ever go up for sale.)

Sandbrook conceded that the UC Regents could overturn a 1965 decree forbidding both a proposed football stadium on campus and any future possibility of a stadium exceeding the size of what became Drake Stadium, the school’s 11,700-seat track and field facility.

“I’ve seen other resolutions undone,” Sandbrook said, noting the removal of UCLA co-founder Edward Dickson’s name from the art building in favor of Eli Broad after the regents once ruled the building would permanently be named after Dickinson.

But there’s never been significant momentum for an on-campus stadium since the idea was revisited in the late 1970s and school administrators dismissed it as unrealistic. Given everything that’s been built around the proposed site since then, it seems all the more implausible.

Perhaps Sandbrook put it best in his initial response when I emailed him asking about the idea.

“Fantasy land,” he wrote.

Vibe check

There weren’t a lot of fans watching Tyler Bilodeau during this game earlier this season.

(Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)

Something feels off about UCLA men’s basketball.

It’s not just that the Bruins are losing more games than they should and the home crowds are small and lifeless.

There’s sort of a demoralized aura around the program these days.

Coach Mick Cronin’s repeated player misevaluations, recruiting struggles and roster construction issues have compounded into the current malaise.

His initial four seasons at UCLA were awesome. The first team was humming by season’s end, the second went to the Final Four and the next two were among the best in the nation.

But the Bruins’ fortunes have plummeted as the landscape changed. As transfers have increasingly filled his roster, Cronin hasn’t been able to land enough relentless, high-motor athletes who fit his defense-first style. He also hasn’t had the time to develop players who are only on campus for a year or two. Can Cronin win in the new climate of constant transfer portal upheaval and bloated player salaries?

Barring a midseason turnaround, these Bruins (11-5 overall, 3-2 Big Ten) are headed for either a terrible NCAA tournament seeding or will be left out of the thing altogether.

This is what can happen when your fortunes are essentially decided in a short spring window based on which transfers you bring in. Cronin can’t be blamed for betting on Donovan Dent, the top transfer point guard who has fallen far short of expectations.

What really changed the trajectory of this season was the loss of center Aday Mara, whose late move to Michigan forced Cronin to pivot to Xavier Booker and Steven Jamerson II. While Mara has starred for the Wolverines, Booker has been almost unplayable in recent weeks in terms of defense, rebounding and hustle. Jamerson is, at best, a quality backup.

There figures to be another roster overhaul this spring, which will be Cronin’s fourth in as many seasons. The coach spoke wistfully this week of Maryland counterpart Buzz Williams having a veteran team filled with seniors in his final season at Texas A&M that he had been allowed to coach over multiple years.

Does that make Cronin want to get transfers with as many years of eligibility left as possible?

“Yeah, but you’re assuming they’re going to stay,” Cronin said, alluding to the new reality of yearly free agency in college basketball. “So when you’re saying get a guy that’s got three years left, you’re assuming he’s going to stay for the next two. I think the answer might be more of, get somebody that comes in with the right habits defensively, toughness-wise, competitiveness-wise, because you can’t change them in six months.”

The problem is that Cronin hasn’t been able to bring in enough of those guys recently. He explained that roster construction isn’t as simple as picking who you want — coaches need the right players available and the financial resources necessary to land them.

“It’s not like you’re at the grocery store — we need this to fit with that,” Cronin said. “It goes to who’s available and how much money you have when it comes to roster building. Every coach, guys, would love to go back to being able to recruit high school guys and at least limit it to a one-time transfer. Every guy would like to be able to build a team, build relationships with guys.

“Times have changed, you’ve just got to keep trying to figure it out and change with the times because I think that ship has sailed.”

This is where Max Feldman comes in. UCLA’s new assistant general manager was hired to help scout and evaluate transfers and high school recruits, giving Cronin a head start on his options once the transfer portal opens.

If Feldman does his job well, he could be the most valuable player of Bruins basketball operations, helping to restore a brand fading like those championship banners hanging from the rafters of their home arena.

Opinion time

Bob Chesney has brought in a slew of transfers, including a bunch who have agreed to follow their coach across the country from James Madison. Which transfer excites you the most?

Running back Wayne Knight

Edge rusher Sahir West

Defensive lineman Maxwell Roy

Offensive lineman Riley Robell

Wide receiver Aiden Mizell

Somebody else

Click here to vote in our survey.

Poll results

We asked “Where do you think UCLA finds itself on Selection Sunday?”

After 541 votes, the results:

The Bruins just barely make it into the tournament, 56.3%

A solid Big Ten run puts it in Nos. 5-7 range, 22.5%

They’re left out of the tournament for the second time in three years, 19.4%

An elite finish leads to a protected seed, 1.8%

In case you missed it

Eric Dailey Jr. and Trent Perry lead UCLA defensive explosion during win over Maryland

Jordan Chiles shines but UCLA finishes third in competitive Collegiate Quad meet

Emails reveal UCLA and SoFi Stadium discussed the Bruins leaving the Rose Bowl in 2024

Fans aren’t flipping to see UCLA basketball based on sagging home attendance

Five fixes needed to get UCLA men’s basketball on track amid dismaying stretch

UCLA lands a top transfer in James Madison running back Wayne Knight

‘Going to bode well.’ UCLA gymnastics freshmen learn from Jordan Chiles, and competition

Have something Bruin?

Do you have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future UCLA newsletter? Email me at ben.bolch@latimes.com, and follow me on X @latbbolch. To order an autographed copy of my book, “100 Things UCLA Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die,” send me an email. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

Los Angeles Fire Chief Jaime Moore admitted Tuesday that his department’s after-action report on the Palisades fire was watered down to shield top brass from scrutiny.

Moore’s admission comes more than two weeks after The Times found that the report was edited to downplay the failures of city and Los Angeles Fire Department leaders in preparing for and fighting the Jan. 7, 2025, fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

“It is now clear that multiple drafts were edited to soften language and reduce explicit criticism of department leadership in that final report,” Moore said Tuesday during remarks before the city’s Board of Fire Commissioners. “This editing occurred prior to my appointment as fire chief. And I can assure you that nothing of this sort will ever again happen while I am fire chief.”

Moore, who was appointed fire chief in November, did not say who was responsible for the changes to the report.

The report’s author, LAFD Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, declined to endorse it because of substantial deletions that altered his findings. Cook said in an Oct. 8 email to then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva and other LAFD officials that the edited version was “highly unprofessional and inconsistent with our established standards.”

Mayor Karen Bass’ office has said that the LAFD wrote and edited the report, and that the mayor did not demand changes.

On Tuesday, Clara Karger, a spokesperson for Bass said: “Mayor Bass fully respects and supports what the Chief said today, and she looks forward to seeing his leadership make the change that is needed within the department. Chief Moore is a courageous leader with strong integrity who continues to show his deep commitment to the people of Los Angeles and to the brave firefighters who serve our city every day.”

Villanueva did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Moore’s remarks, on the eve of the first anniversary of the Palisades fire, were the strongest admission yet of missteps by LAFD leaders. They amounted to an about-face for a chief who in November critiqued the media following a Times report that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the area of a New Year’s Day fire even though they had complained that the ground was still smoldering. That fire, the Lachman fire, later reignited into the Palisades fire.

“This is about learning and not assigning blame,” said Fire Commissioner Sharon Delugach, who praised the chief for his comments.

The most significant changes, The Times found in its analysis of seven drafts of the report, involved top LAFD officials’ decision not to fully staff up and pre-deploy available firefighters ahead of the ferocious winds.

An initial draft said the decision “did not align” with policy, while the final version said the number of companies pre-deployed “went above and beyond the standard LAFD pre-deployment matrix.”

A section on “failures” was renamed “primary challenges,” and an item saying that crews and leaders had violated national guidelines on how to avoid firefighter deaths and injuries was scratched.

Another passage that was deleted said that some crews waited more than an hour for an assignment on Jan. 7, 2025.

The department made other changes that seemed intended to make the report seem less negative. In one draft, there was a suggestion to change the cover image from a photo of palm trees on fire to a more “positive” image, such as “firefighters on the frontline.” The final report displays the LAFD seal on its cover.

A July email thread reviewed by The Times shows concern over how the after-action report would be received, with the LAFD forming a “crisis management workgroup.”

“The primary goal of this workgroup is to collaboratively manage communications for any critical public relations issue that may arise. The immediate and most pressing crisis is the Palisades After Action Report,” LAFD Assistant Chief Kairi Brown wrote in an email to eight other people.

“With significant interest from media, politicians, and the community, it is crucial that we present a unified response to anticipated questions and concerns,” Brown wrote. “By doing so, we can ensure our messaging is clear and consistent, allowing us to create our own narrative rather than reactive responses.”

Maryam Zar, a Palisades resident who runs the Palisades Recovery Coalition, said that “when news came out that this report had been doctored to save face, it didn’t take much for [Palisades residents] to believe that was true.”

It was easy for Moore to admit the faults of previous LAFD administrations, she said.

“He’s not going to take any heat. It wasn’t him,” she said. “He’s not the fire chief who really should have stood up and said, ‘I didn’t do what I should have.’”

The after-action report has been widely criticized for failing to examine the New Year’s Day fire that later reignited into the Palisades fire. Bass has ordered the LAFD to commission an independent investigation into its missteps in putting out the earlier fire.

On Tuesday, Moore said the city failed to adequately ensure that the New Year’s Day fire was fully snuffed out.

He said that LAFD officials “genuinely believed the fire was fully extinguished.”

“That was based on the information, conditions, and procedures in place at that moment. That belief guided the operational decision-making that was made,” he said. “However, the outcome has made it incredibly clear that our mop-up and verification process needed to be stronger.”

“We have to own that, and I do,” he added.

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