The Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo is the training home of the Los Angeles Kings. (Nov. 2018 photo by Sam Gnerre)
Southern California has long been an attractive place for major pro sports teams to practice, dating at least as far back as the 1920s, when the Chicago Cubs trained on Catalina Island.
Even out-of-state teams have trained in the area. For 26 years starting in 1963, the Dallas Cowboys held summer training camp at Cal Lutheran College in Thousand Oaks. (The team currently holds training camp in Oxnard.)
Other winter sports teams have established permanent training facilities much closer to home in the South Bay in recent years.
A member of the El Segundo Chamber of Commerce sports an “El Segundo Home of the Raiders” t-shirt. 1987 photo. (Credit: Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection)
Weather and proximity to LAX as well as their team venues all have played a role in their decisions, but so has the attractiveness of living in the South Bay. Many pro athletes live in the beach cities of Manhattan, Hermosa and Redondo, so it made sense for teams such as the Kings, Lakers and Clippers to build training centers nearby.
Before any of that became a reality, though, there was the Los Angeles Raiders. When the late Al Davis moved his Oakland Raiders to the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1982, he decided to set up a training facility in El Segundo. (The Raiders held their summer camp in Oxnard.)
The team trained in Oakland during the strike-shortened 1982 season, but Davis signed a 10-year lease that year to use El Segundo Junior High School as the team’s training center. The school was unoccupied after having been closed in 1979 due to low enrollment.
July 22, 1985 issue.
The deal included two three-year renewal options, and El Segundo officials also thought they had stipulated that the school would be returned to its prior state if the Raiders should leave.
The Raiders did leave after the 1994 season ended, but not before renewing the lease a second time. Once back in Oakland, however, Davis refused to pony up the remainder owed on the lease or to repay the school district for the necessary repairs when it decided to reopen the school as El Segundo Middle School.
In addition to blowing off the lease, the team left town without lifting a finger to repair the school and its athletic fields, which had been left in poor shape.
The school district had to sue Davis to recoup the $346,000 he owed them in rent, winning that case in 1997. But no compensation was forthcoming on repairs; a bond issue had to be passed to pay for the renovation before the school could reopen in 1999. The total cost of the project was $3.5 million, including $1.2 million to return the school to pre-Raiders condition.
El Segundo MIddle School had to be renovated before reopening after the Raiders used it for a training center. (Credit: El Segundo Unified School District)
Other area pro teams have had happier experiences with South Bay training facilities.
El Segundo had brought up the idea of building a permanent training facility for the Los Angeles Kings hockey team in 1991 as part of a larger development, but the deal fell through.
In 1995, the Lakers signed on with the Kings to revive the proposal, a 23-acre project on Nash St. between El Segundo Blvd. and Mariposa Ave. Ground for the new facility was broken in April 1999.
The promise of the new facility was used to influence free agent Shaquille O’Neal to sign with the team in 1996.
Photographers record the groundbreaking ceremony in for the new Kings, Lakers and Sparks training center in El Segundo. From left: Tim Leiweke, Kings Pres., Dave Taylor, Kings GM, Nancy Wernick, ES councilwoman, Luc Robitaille, Kings player, and Mike Gordon, ES mayor. April 28, 1999. (Daily Breeze staff file photo)
Before the new HealthSouth Center building opened in 2000, the Kings previously had been using the Iceoplex skating complex in Van Nuys, while the Lakers were training at Southwest College in South Los Angeles.
The HealthSouth Center was rechristened the Toyota Sports Center after HealthSouth’s naming rights expired in 2005.
The Kings still train there. The WNBA’s Sparks also trained there until moving to St. Bernard High School in 2013.
The UCLA Health Training Center under construction in Aug. 2016. (Daily Breeze staff file photo)
As for the Lakers, the team felt constrained by having to share the Toyota Sports Center with the Kings and various youth teams. Its executives decided in 2015 to build the team its own $80 million state-of-the-art training facility a couple blocks away from the Toyota Sports Center. The two-story, 122,000-square-foot facility opened in September 2018.
The UCLA Health Training Center — the Lakers sold naming rights to the facility in 2016 — has a low-profile look at ground level, but its rooftop Lakers team logo gives it a splashy look from the air.
The recently opened UCLA Health Training Center is home to the Los Angeles Lakers. (Nov. 2018 photo by Sam Gnerre)
The five-acre complex at 2275 E. Mariposa Ave. includes a double basketball court for Lakers practice and the D-League South Bay Lakers home games, two half-courts, and other training areas, and also serves as the team’s corporate headquarters.
The Los Angeles Clippers also have a history of training in the South Bay. After previously holding practices at an El Segundo Spectrum health club, a community college and at Veterans Park in Carson, the team announced plans to build its own permanent training complex in 2006.
The $60 million Los Angeles Clippers Training Center opened at 6951 Centinela Ave. in Playa Vista in September 2008 on a 2-acre parcel near Centinela and Bluff Creek Drive. The team had considered using new facilities at the StubHub Center in Carson before deciding on Playa Vista.
The Los Angeles Clippers show off their new state of the art 42,500 square foot training facility in Playa Vista in 2008. The facility has two basketball courts, strength, training and conditioning areas, video production facility and offices for the basketball operations department. (Daily Breeze staff file photo)
The NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers, temporary StubHub Center co-tenants until the Los Angeles Stadium at Hollywood Park that they will share with the Los Angeles Rams is ready for occupancy, currently train at the Jack Hammett Sports Complex in Costa Mesa. The Rams currently train at UC Irvine.
The Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer have training facilities at the team’s home field, the StubHub Center in Carson. The MSL team Chivas USA also trained there before going out of business in 2014.
The Galaxy also bought the South Bay Soccer Center on Maple Ave. in Torrance and renamed it the LA Galaxy Soccer Center in 2012. The indoor site is used for youth soccer training and development.
Soccer fan Sam Twigg watches the Galaxy practice on its training field at Home Depot Center in 2007. The stadium was renamed the StubHub Center in 2013. (Daily Breeze staff file photo)
Sources:
Daily Breeze files.
Los Angeles Times files.
