Worker at Coliseum Says It Will Be Ready for Season

The Coliseum will definitely be ready to hold football games by Sept. 1, according to a construction supervisor who has worked at the site since March.

Clarence Sutton, a carpenter superintendent for Tutor-Saliba, said this week that despite several setbacks in the last four months, work is on schedule to be completed before USC and the Raiders begin playing their home games there in September.

USC is scheduled to play host to Washington on Sept. 3, and the Raiders are scheduled to play their first home game against the Seattle Seahawks on Sept. 11.

“There were times when it goes through your mind that you might not make it, especially when you looked around and saw so much work to be done,” Sutton said. “But over the last couple of weeks, things have picked up and changed a little bit. The Raiders can go ahead and start selling tickets because we’re going to be ready. We have enough guys to get it done now.”

With nearly 500 workers on two shifts, heavy construction is being done for 21 hours a day. A major breakthrough is expected to come as soon as next week, when outside drilling is completed.

“Right now, we’re already starting to backfill around the outside,” Sutton said. “Once drilling is completed, a lot of work will open up and we’ll be able to go as fast as we want to. Two months is a long time to get a lot of work done when you’re working around the clock.”

A major problem in repairing the Coliseum has been the original underestimate of the work needed after the Northridge earthquake in January. Sutton said that follow-up inspections by engineers discovered more damage and forced crews to redo some of their previous work.

“They came through and noticed a lot of stuff that they didn’t see at first,” Sutton said. “They made us make some corrections and move some things out. But one thing is for sure, and that is once we’re done, the stadium will be ready.”

Although the Coliseum may be ready for football in September, work will continue during the week between weekend games, mainly on inside bathrooms and possibly the press box.