Strip of contrast-colored artificial turf marking the northern section of the Hayward Fault that runs through California Memorial Stadium.

BERKELEY -- On June 21, California defensive lineman Luc Bequette was sitting in a summer class in Dwinelle Hall. He felt the building shake. Remembering the six years of his youth spent in Fountain Valley, Calif., Bequette immediately thought to get under a desk. At 6-foot-1, 280 pounds, he doesn't quite fit anymore.

As the 3.3-magnitude earthquake rolled through the East Bay, Chris Pezman stood on the seventh floor of California Memorial Stadium's press box. Pezman, Cal's Senior Associate Athletics Director and Chief Operating Officer, was attending a farewell reception for outgoing chancellor Nicholas Dirks. As it was designed to do, the structure swayed, but did not damage the stadium's historic facade.

"The whole stadium bounced, and I was like, 'That's what $400 million gets you,'" Pezman said. "It was too perfect."

Barely two weeks before the quake, centered in El Cerrito, near the Hayward Fault, workers had laid down a thin, contrasting light-green strip of artificial turf from the back of the stadium's north end zone, terminating at the north tunnel. Another zig-zagging strip was laid down from the southwest corner of the south end zone ending at the stands. On Saturday, Cal fans will get their first look at what Pezman and the Bears hope will become a defining feature of the stadium, and the program -- the path of that same Hayward Fault.

"College athletics is the one place where you can dip your toe a little bit into Minor League Baseball, and you can do the cool things," said Pezman, who was the main proponent behind the initiative to acknowledge the fault line on the field. "We need to own it. We spent a lot of money to make that stadium one of the safest places in the Bay, in case there's a serious seismic event."

About half of the $464 million spent on the stadium's renovation in 2010 and 2011 went towards seismic retrofitting, which was mandated by the University of California regents. At a university perhaps overly concerned with public relations, announcing to the college football world that the stadium could be split in half by an earthquake seems like it would be a 'hard pass,' at best, and 'alarmist' at worst, even though the stadium's state-of-the-art seismic engineering is designed to prevent that scenario.



When former assistant athletic director Bob Milano, Jr., led a tour through the stadium in August of 2012, he admitted to being admonished by higher-ups for saying that experiencing an earthquake in the press box would feel like "an E-ticket ride," given that the box is structurally separate from the stadium, and is designed to sway independently in multiple directions without damaging the historic structure.

Five years on, though, Pezman didn't get any pushback from the administration.

"I talked to Mike [Williams], and the rest of our administration, and they were all on board," Pezman said. "I talked to the architects about it a couple years ago, and they were very hesitant, bercause they were mindful of the fault line and the concern that was created, but I think we're past that. I think it's been socialized enough that everyone knows it's there. We've got to lean into it."

The full extent of the strip of lighter turf marking the Hayward Fault beyond the north end zone at California Memorial Stadium.

As part of Under Armour's sponsorship contract with the school, the Baltimore-based apparel company included a signing bonus to update and re-brand the playing surfaces at Memorial Stadium and Haas Pavilion. Small touches -- replacing the Nike-designed roaring bear with a script 'California' over entrances to the stands, updating the Joe Roth honorific in the southwest corner -- were simple, but when the prospect of re-designing Memorial Stadium's field arose, Pezman wanted something a bit more daring.

"We threw a bunch of stuff up on the board. There were some really good ideas, and some really bad ones," said Pezman. "Think of all the cool ballparks you've been to, for baseball. They always have some cool, identifying feature. We've got Tightwad Hill, and the one thing that nobody ever wants to talk about is the fault line."

Tucked away in the north end of the stadium's concourse level is a concession stand named 'The Fault Line,' but it's just that -- a good idea hidden away in the shadows.

"I don't know how it came up, but I was talking to [Josh] Hummel, my ops guy, and I said, 'What do you think about the fault line?' The direct quote was 'F*** yeah, I love it,'" Pezman said.

Pezman and his staff went through about 10 different renderings of how the field would be done. One option was taking the fault line through the entire length of the field, with one shade of green on the eastern edge, and a different shade on the western edge. That, though, created too many seams.

The green strips are more staid, but also geologically accurate. Each strip terminates at the base of one of the two specially-designed rupture blocks: parts of the stands that sit directly on the fault, which are separated, structurally, from the rest of the stadium. The two free-floating surface-rupture blocks are built to slide with the fault, even if the earth below shifts up to six feet.

The seismic joint between California Memorial Stadium's rupture block and the western half of the stadium, as seen from inside the north tunnel.

On the north side, the strip lines up exactly with a series of parallel tension rips in the rubberized track leading up the north tunnel. Judging by the rips, the fault has moved about five inches since the renovations were finished.

"I thought it was just some bad architecture, but it's where the actual fault line is," Bequette said. "I had never even noticed that until this spring. I'd seen a rumor that they were going to put [the fault line turf] in, so I was looking for it. We all noticed right as we walked out for the first time [in fall camp]."

The placement was no lucky accident. Integrated into the stadium are seismic measuring devices, and the mapping of the strips onto the fault line was thanks to several Berkeley geologists.

"We couldn't have planned it better that we got the movement right where this building is set to move," Pezman said. "You know where the building structure is supposed to slide. We're supposed to get movement, and we got it pretty closed. It was a dead-on spot. Couldn't have been better."

On Aug. 12, as safety Jaylinn Hawkins walked along the light green, jagged strip of turf from the back of the north end zone, his eyes widened. He breathed out, "Wow."

"Oh, man," Hawkins said. "I didn't even realize this was the fault line. I wondered, 'Why would there be extra turf right here? What are they trying to do?'"

"First day. First day, I saw it, I knew what it was right away," said kicker Matt Anderson. "I thought it was so awesome, something so unique that no other school has. It was awesome."

"It's wild," said starting quarterback Ross Bowers, who grew up in Washington, which is part of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, another earthquake-prone region. "I was actually in an earthquake class in the summer, and they showed us that the line splits perfectly down the middle of the stadium, so that's pretty wild. That makes us a unique stadium. Hopefully, the crowd can make our own little mini earthquake on third down for the defense."

The strip marking the Hayward Fault meets with the rubber ground covering outside the north tunnel of California Memorial Stadium. The rips in the rubber indicate movement of the fault line beneath the stadium.

Rubber ground cover in the north tunnel of California Memorial Stadium shows the rips from movement of the Hayward Fault.

The strips even drew praise from head coach Justin Wilcox, who is generally ambivalent to any off-the-field concern that doesn't help him win football games.

"Yeah, it's unique. It's us," said head coach Justin Wilcox. "I think it's cool. I think it's great."

Recruiting coordinator and quarterbacks coach Marques Tuiasosopo also approved.

"I don't know if it's good or bad, but it's pretty unique to the area," Tuiasosopo said. "It's kind of fun that they did it, and obviously, we love the stadium. It's beautiful. The turf is great. It's kind of a fun little tidbit. It's exciting."

While the most visible fault strip is that in the north of the stadium, where the Bears enter the field -- Cal can't control geography simply for home field advantage -- there is a sign outside the visitor's locker room indicating that the ground beneath the stadium can -- and, someday, will -- shift.

The sign, posted on Thursday morning, features "YOUR SAFETY IS IMPORTANT TO US" writ in big, bold, white lettering. In the bottom right-hand corner of the sign, below descriptions of the types of emergencies that can arise, are red letters, captioning a figure falling into a crack, reading: "DO NOT FALL INTO FAULT LINE".

"That's where we're at," said redshirt junior quarterback Chase Forrest. "We're right here. If it happens, we're right here, so it kind of reminds you, and shoot, maybe it'll scare the other team one time."

Earthquake sign posted outside the visitor's locker room at California Memorial Stadium.

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