'College GameDay' in Berkeley to Set Up in Memorial Glade
Doe Library will likely be featured prominently.
It appears we have a confirmed location for the first trip to Berkeley from ESPN’s College Gameday. It’ll be situated at the heart of campus in Memorial Glade. From the Cal Athletics press release:
Saturday's show in Berkeley will be staged at Memorial Glade in the center of campus. Fans interested in attending in person are encouraged to arrive early.
Grant Marek of SFGate later caught up with Cal athletics director Jim Knowlton, who confirmed that the ESPN crew will be set up near Doe Library. It sounds as if that Doe could either be in the background or the actual place where the ESPN set is setup.
So you could have the Glade itself filled up with Cal fans, with the studio set up somewhere near the stairs from the library (you can see an example below from one of our many Cal Twitter memes).
The other possibility appears to be an inversion of that setup, where Doe LIbrary is the backdrop, maybe featuring the Campanile, and ESPN sets up somewhere on the Glade itself.
Either possibility is pretty exciting. Expect a full announcement with details shortly on the College Gameday website.
What do you think is the best angle for the College Gameday set?
I'd like to say I've visited an unusual number of college campuses across the country. Without getting serious about counting them up, it's gosh, over 30. Most of the major schools on the West Coast, as well as quite a few in the middle and sad East. IMO, the Berkeley campus is not only unique. It is uniquely and majestically gorgeous. Nowhere, not UW, not Boulder, not NAU, not Eugene or any other place supposedly located in picturesque places, can begin to compare to the views from the Berkeley campus out over the Bay and Golden Gate into the settting sun, or the shimmering hills on a Saturday morning. And the old granite buildings, and redwoods, and Strawberry Creek. Faculty Glade. To be in a place so spectacularly beautiful, beneath the Campanile, and among the buildings that house the brightest minds in the world, is an overwhelming joy for me.
No words, despite my efforts here, begin to convey what that campus means to me.
All these years later, when I come back to campus, I still have moments where I’m just awestruck by how beautiful a place it is. I’m so excited the whole country will get to see it too.