The Front Row with MARK NELKE March 31, 2013

After our, shall we say, enlightening, trip to Candlestick Park three years ago - a journey I have been taking a raft of you-know-what about ever since - I was bound and determined to make up for it last week, during our most recent trip to the Bay Area to watch the early rounds of the NCAA tournament.

You may recall the story from 2010 - me, the diehard 49ers fan for more than four decades, wanting to visit the hallowed ground where the team with five Super Bowl titles played.

Since we were in the neighborhood - in nearby San Jose, for the NCAAs - why not?

However, it was hard to find any other takers in our travel party to accompany me, for some reason. Instead, the others in our travel party opted to bus down to Santa Cruz, to spend the day enjoying the sun, the ocean, the margaritas ...

Sun? We get that in North Idaho sometimes in the spring.

Ocean? Lincoln City, Ore., suits me just fine.

Margaritas? They taste great almost anywhere.

BESIDES, A trip to Candlestick was a quest - a quest for fun.

And two people - perhaps sympathetically - offered to join me on my journey to the 'Stick, lest I go by myself and end up waking up in a roadside ditch.

We'll call one of them "Jim" (not his real name) and the other, his wife, "Candy" (not her real name either).

Anyway, after various forms of public transportation delivered us to the stadium, we realized the view from the blimp on NFL Sundays does not tell the entire story - most of the houses in the neighborhood look like they should be boarded up, and pot smoke wafted from the cars of some of the people who had parked along the roadway circling the stadium near the bay. And for the other people who had parked along the road on this sunny weekday afternoon ... well, we didn't really want to know why they were there.

Well, since then, in an unrelated event, the 49ers decided to build a new stadium, and they opted to relocate down the road, in Santa Clara, where they hope to start playing in their new digs in 2014.

And after a visit the other day to check out the new stadium, which is still under construction, you can understand why. Three years after that ill-fated journey to the ’Stick, “Candy” joined me again on this trip; “Jim” respectfully declined.

BEFORE YOU even step off the bus in Santa Clara, with the new stadium in view, you can tell the difference — it’s clean.

The parking lot was clean, the air was clean. And if anyone had been talking nearby, you can bet their language would have been clean.

And there is an amusement park right next door — certainly the good folks of California would not subject their children to frolicking about in a questionable neighborhood.

We were able to walk around the perimeter of the stadium without fear — the only dangerous thing going on nearby was some people hitting golf balls on the driving range at the golf and tennis club.

The whole area smelled of suburbia.

There was a walking/jogging/biking trail near the stadium, where we ran across a friendly local retired gentleman who became our de facto tour guide for much of our trip. He regaled us with tales of Eddie DeBartolo, the former 49ers owner, and pointed out that the new stadium was being built right next to the practice facility, where the team has trained for years.

Our de facto tour guide, who lived near the new stadium, admitted to being a Raiders fan — though he said he would gladly convert to the 49ers “if they gave me tickets.”

Green tarp on the fences prevented too much of a close-up view of anything, though we were able to peek through the fence at the practice field — where there were a few people out in the middle of the grassy field, on their hands and knees, apparently looking for weeds. They were a little bit more meticulous in this endeavor than you or I might be later this spring in our backyards.

But you could see enough of the practice field that it looked like what you see on TV sometimes.

Asked if we could get close to the stadium, a friendly guard said “absolutely not,” though we noticed a few people wandering around the inside of the stadium, as if they were being given a tour in exchange for ... well, perhaps renting a suite?

That not being an option for us, we backtracked to the bus stop and returned to San Jose to get ready for the second day of NCAA games.

To sum up, it was an enjoyable, stress-free trip — as much fun as you can have at a construction site, anyway. Especially without a hard hat and/or a helicopter to get an overhead view of things.

AS FOR the NCAA games ...

• Who knew Bill Walton was such an Oregon Ducks fan?

Sure, the signature moment of his NBA career took place in the state of Oregon, leading the Portland Trail Blazers to the NBA title in 1977. But one of his rare losses at UCLA came as a senior at McArthur Court in Eugene.

But there he was, green tie-dye pullover and all, sitting prominently in Oregon’s rooting section for the Ducks’ round of 64 game against Oklahoma State.

A line formed during the game, from his aisle seat and up the stairs, and he showed his class by sharing a moment which each person who approached him, be it a picture, an autograph request, or just to say hi — and perhaps talk about his favorite band, the Grateful Dead.

Some gentleman named George Raveling sat in front of him, barely noticed by anyone.

Turns out, Walton and Raveling are friends of Pat Kilkenny, former Oregon athletic director and one of the school’s major donors. Kilkenny sat next to Raveling, leaning back to chat with Walton during many of the breaks in action.

• UNLV showed very little fight in a loss to Cal in the round of 64. The only highlight for the Runnin’ Rebels was the sight of Guy Fieri, of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” fame, and a UNLV grad, sitting in the Rebels’ cheering section, wearing UNLV gear.

However, it looked like Fieri went “rollin’ out” of HP Pavilion at halftime. The Rebels rolled out much sooner than that.

• Montana’s loss to Syracuse in the round of 64 was probably the least competitive game I’ve seen in the nearly 30 years of coming to these games.

You had to feel sorry for Montana, which had no chance from the beginning against Syracuse’s zone. The Griz couldn’t — or wouldn’t — shoot over it. And when they penetrated, and seemingly had a makeable inside shot, more often or not they got swatted.

You could definitely see the frustration on their faces — not quite the defense they see in the Big Sky.

Kudos to Syracuse for winning what was basically a road game in the next round, as most of the sellout crowd of 18,030 consisted of fans from nearby Cal.

IN ANOTHER unrelated event, this year our travel party’s jaunt to Santa Cruz was scheduled for a different day from the Santa Clara trip, so the whole group — including myself, “Jim” and “Candy” — got to enjoy the sun, the ocean, the margaritas ...

All of which were quite enjoyable on a warm late March afternoon, thank you.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.