It's like if you were you were trying to lose weight but all you did was cut out your daily bowl of ice cream. You might lose a lb. — Goags20172

Ha, I know that struggle. The doctor has been telling me to quit ice cream and soda for years. Neither of which is going to happen, lol.

Are you looking at Biggs' FCS record only? I think his lifetime was closer to 0.62, but heavily influenced by the run in the 90s. But here's another one for the list - Coach Gary Stewart (just the mention turns stomachs on the Hamilton Court thread) - 0.373. If there is any pattern, it seems the threshold of acceptability to past ADs has been a 0.4 minimum, with a sustained record below that resulting in staff changes. 2020-21 was a weird year, so I don't know if coaches will get a pass, but it wasn't good. To your point though, in the lifetime of current recruits, only 2 winning seasons, and neither recent. Chicken and egg problem where it's hard to recruit winners when you aren't a winning team and even harder to sell the "you can be part of the turnaround" pitch when everything in the program is static. I didn't realize how long Vaughn had been around... played 89-92 and became an assistant coach at UCD in 1993. That's actually kind of unusual by today's standards I think to not have had any interludes with other programs. If we believe the coach is the issue, is it the coach's skill (a la Gould), or the coach's culture (CGS) that is the problem? Perhaps the hard question is whether it's really the coach or some other x-factor that would hamper any coach.

@Goags20172 There was an opinion article in the Washington Post today about baseball rules. Basic assertion was that MLB games are getting longer with more time between plays, more strikeouts, and scoring becoming reliant on home runs due to back office stat coaching and pitches getting faster. The author suggests a correlation with dropping MLB attendance and that moving the mound, defining where infielders can stand, or a play clock between pitches might make the game more exciting to casual fans by bolstering offense activity. I'm curious your thoughts on those type of changes. And not that all pro rules filter down to collegiate and youth levels, but if something like a play clock did, how would that affect the game? I know there is a lot of attention at the youth levels of injuries to pitcher's shoulders. Would a play clock make those injuries worse or cause a seismic shift to some (safer?) winning strategy other than throwing at the speed of sound?

well then I suppose there are no easy answers. Organized crime is also involved the ice cream bar, tide pod, and diaper businesses, so I guess we can’t have anything nice. At any rate, if they’re going to have a cannabis major, hopefully they got a food science department too. Could make for a fun bake sale.

I’ve heard the same. I’m not an expert on the business but I’d assume the illegitimate operations will pop up as fast they are swatted until sanctioned commercial growers become efficient enough to beat them on price, quality, and consistency.

heh, the "Finn" in AggieFinn makes sense then. Here I had been assuming (for no reason in particular) that you might be into fishing.

I doubt that a proposed cannabis major would promote irresponsible use of weed any more than the beer and wine professors at Davis would suggest you get hammered on Natural Ice and Franzia every Thursday thru Sunday. Since weed demand isn’t going away, it seems reasonable to invest in at least shrinking its environmental impact.

I've never been to the SJ Giants facility so can't say much about it. Went to one game many years ago at (then) Raley Field. I remember it being pleasant for an evening game - a fun family atmosphere, good sightlines, and a decent BBQ on the berm. But I recall the "redcoats" they had running security and operations were obnoxious. They were also a problem for a few years at Toomey Field when Greg W hired them to replace students as ushers. I do think the placement of the stadium is odd. I guess it frames Tower Bridge from the press box, but it really kind of wastes the fact that it is waterfront property. A riverfront plaza would have made sense and maybe even a lagoon so the yacht crowd could sail to games. It followed an old trope that building a stadium in an impoverished or industrial area would revitalize the area and magically change the fortunes of nearby residents without displacing them. 20 years in and still waiting on those results. Build stadiums that host night games in neighborhoods where you would want to walk around at night. It appears Sutter Health recently bought the naming rights for an undisclosed sum probably in the $15-20M range as part of a national trend of hospitals and health systems getting involved in the sports business. Being a "non-profit" health system, I might have felt better about those millions going to lower medical bills or enhance patient care in a more direct way.

I guess I haven't been in 10 years, but I remember their breakfasts being on par with diner food while their dinners were above average. Hard to beat the price-to-portion ratio when you're a weary traveler looking for simple, but I'll agree it's not the best place for a steak. I share your opinion that too many restaurants are too frozen. I don't even go to places like Chilis anymore (unless Mrs. Fugawe pushes the issue for the chips and margaritas) because they literally hawk their frozen dinners in the grocery store and it's the same thing. It's kind of a sad state of affairs that it turns out food quality is not a great predictor of success for a restaurant, while location, parking, speed of service, and consistency are. Arguably the Super Bird sandwich at Denny's is not great, but it has been extremely consistent across thousands of restaurants over multiple decades and people like that. And when my boss declares optional (read: mandatory) happy hour, they pick a place based on ample parking and willingness to do split checks, not food quality. I have a Texas Roadhouse I could walk to from my house. Never been, I'll have to try it at some point.

Jurassic Park was far fetched in the 90s, though I think biotech is getting us closer, for better or worse. Just remember, nature always finds a way! I just looked at Black Bears website and it has become a big chain! I remember when it was just a handful of units mostly north of Sacramento. My only complaint about the Davis location is how busy it always is, for good reason. Tough to get a table on any sort of parents weekend. One of the few food spots in Davis that isn’t a pizza joint where I feel confident pronouncing all of the menu items.

Indeed land is a finite resource and the societal best use isn't always the most profitable use. While the campus probably isn't where I would have put it, it is what it is and I hope it can develop into something notable. I'm just not sure what its specialty is either academically or culturally. It's kind of just there. Maybe traditions and reputations were just easier to organically establish 100 years ago.

The land was owned by the Virginia Smith Trust, a charity providing college scholarships. The David and Lucille Packard Foundation donated $11M to UC to buy out the trust's land. The trust had operated a golf course on the part of the property where the University now sits. The original plan had been for 30,000 students and a neighboring village to be developed by the trust, but an endangered species was discovered on the property so development may be somewhat limited to the area previously disturbed by the golf course.

Yeah, I get wanting to increase accessibility to valley students (which, let's be real is academic-speak for wanting to increase Hispanic enrollment). I think Fresno or Bakersfield area would have made more sense, even if you put it in a suburb like Clovis in order to not share a name. But even choosing Merced, they bought property where there isn't really the opportunity for a "college town" to spring up adjacent to campus, nor is there good access to 99. I had a friend who went there when it first opened and it was a pretty lonely outpost when I visited. The locals welcomed the idea of a university, but weren't as keen on a bunch of traffic headed down quiet rural roads.

Not sure I understand the part about EDM festivals. I would put a decline in concerts and live events on college campuses into three main drivers - 1. University facilities haven't kept up with what promoters are looking for to make a show profitable in terms of venue size and equipment, 2. Universities have become difficult to deal with because of red tape and to some degree the thought police wanting to moderate the show's content, and 3. The average age of show-goers is now mid-30s instead of college students. Hard to say if this is due to changing tastes or just that show tickets have gotten too expensive for students. Either way, universities have become more squeamish about encouraging non-affiliates to visit campus because they can really only police behavior that is illegal, whereas on students they can enforce made-up things like principles of community codes in their internal kangaroo courts.

Merced just finished a new competition aquatic complex so I’d imagine swimming and water polo might be the next adds. I’d love more football in California because at that rate we leak players to other states there is clearly supply. But I don’t think the dollars will line up for that at Merced unless a billionaire type took it on as a vanity project - and so far they have cultivated the Gallo wine family as a major benefactor, so you never know. Not sure what the NAIA or D3 scene is but with zilch on the D2 stage the path to FCS is nonexistent not mention the title IX imbalance created for a small ICA program. You’d know better than me the baseball/softball scene. Not sure if demographics influence potential sports interest, but they differ from the other campuses in that it is substantially more Hispanic and has less than 1% out of state or international. They draw students roughly 25% from each of LA area, Bay Area, San Joaquin valley, and “other” parts of CA

UC Merced is an interesting study. Their gym is a joke for the size of the campus - again not necessarily because their athletics team commands a facility of size but because any campus designed for 10,000 students should have the ability to host an event (not necessarily athletic) with more than a couple hundred attendees. UC Merced is approaching parity with Eastern Washington and Montana in size, though is unlikely to ever have that kind of sports following. My two cents is that it was the wrong location because there is not much to make it a destination, nor is it really that close to the valley population centers. The perception is that it is the repository for people not accepted to the other campuses, a distinction I'm sure Riverside was pleased to shed.

A huge problem with really all state property is that it gets built with one-time bond money but then has insufficient funding for maintenance and operations so the facilities degrade until really expensive renovations are needed. Turns out that paint, carpet cleaning, and toilet paper aren't sexy sells in Sacramento. Case and point is that the Rec Pool at Davis had to be completely bulldozed and replaced because ordinary routine maintenance was deferred so long that it became unrepairable. An odd take from a university so concerned about the environment they don't allow candy in the stadium (due to plastic waste), when in real terms the construction and demolition of structures typically has a greater carbon footprint than the lifetime operation. UC Merced is trying a new concept where the campus facilities are a public-private partnership and they have contracted a private firm to build, operate, and maintain the facilities for the next 35 years. I guess we will have to wait and see the results, but I am by default skeptical of schemes that promise more for less while also delivering profits for investors.

I'll put my reply to the OT board so we don't get toooo far off the topic of the football roster here!

You're probably right. I went to games religiously in the 90s and 2000s and remember some of those tense nights at both Sac and Poly. I haven't been in person much in the last 10 years so I suppose my perception is frozen in time, which is probably early onset of me becoming an old fart.

I guess I'm alone in wrinkling my nose about a Davis man putting on green. I'm not sure how the Covid eligibility relief works... he has graduated from UCD, but Sac's roster lists him as a Sr transfer. So does he have to take classes at all, does he take some non-degree seeking undergrad classes, or is he going to be taking graduate courses? His profile says he wants to be a PE teacher (and coach), so in my mind, if he is legitimately pursuing a teaching credential or master's degree through Sac State then it's weird but checks out. If he's not there for a legitimate academic purpose, it would be a shame that some other student is being denied a seat. Also curious when players or coaches transfer to opponent teams, is there any sort of gentleman's accord about divulging internal team info or is that considered fair game?

I’m not going to say it’s the primary driver, but I’m sure somebody in student affairs will put this on their annual review as a commitment to equity. Self defense classes will skew female, swim lessons will skew toward people who grew up without access to pools (read socioeconomic disadvantaged). Want to increase program representation of women and pell grant recipients? Add programs like this and delete programs that may overrepresent the other end of the spectrum. And by all means I’m not against swim lessons or self defense, but to remove or substitute amenities that people have been paying towards without notice, input or justification, its like when a tech company changes the terms of service to your disadvantage on a product you’ve already purchased.

indeed times are changing, in many ways for the better, though not always. Promise I’m not a ranting old man and I don’t mean to sidetrack this conversation about PE to include band politics (though happy to discuss elsewhere!). My point is that good public leaders are transparent because the people’s business shouldn’t be a secret from the people. George Pardee, the governor that signed UCD into existence, famously removed the door from his office and refused secret meetings. He might be a good role model for these troubled times.