5

There is definitely something to what you are saying. The focus of college sports has changed quite a bit and it is more transparently about the money. If I attend a sporting event at some universities it's almost as if everyone working there sees you in terms of dollar signs and not your value as a supporter.

And I believe there's a growing disconnect as you get older too. The more time passes the less you can empathize with the student-athletes and their situations. I think you almost have to be a season ticketholder for football and/or basketball at UC Davis to feel a real connection to the athletic program if you're a not-so-recent alumna/us (with the exception being former student-athletes + coaches). It's really the only way the athletic dept will engage with you and of course even that is motivated by money on some level.

The media's opinion on this is worthless. For an equally worthless opinion I polled some transients in the park. They had UC Davis at #11 because the lost to the Bengals at Idaho Monster Truck Arena last year.

They should eliminate NFLpre-game shows and replace them with an hour of silence (well 25 min after you take out the commercials. The pre-game show sponsored by Skyrizi because "Nothing is Everything".

Also, UC Davis should eliminate all its sports so it can use the student fees to bring back P.E. classes and be real smug about how it's working toward a kinder campus where no one is treated better based on their athletic prowess but rather the wokeness of their social media posts.

Because his last name might remind people of butts.

Never mind. All of the teams play in Birmingham

I just read that the Michigan Panthers play their home games in Birmingham, AL. Ok..

This doesn't surprise me. It's not the first time multiple Texas teams have used the WAC as a temporary workspace. Probably more to follow. Too many teams in the WAC, and Lamar is probably steamed they lost out to NMSU (losing record overall + in conference) in the WAC baseball tournament.

I really don't care what happens to UCLA and Aunt Becky University. Little chance this affects UCD in any way, except maybe if UCLA will beg off that future football game ?

College athletics programs have gotten bloated to the point of being ridiculous. Being $100 million in debt-how did we even get to the point where such a thing was possible ?

There really needs to be a reorganization of college sports conferences, at least in the west, in my opinion. For one thing the West Coast Conference needs to be eliminated. That is just a group of super-expensive private schools with varying degrees of church affiliations-and dnot even the same church. It's not like they refuse to play against public schools, so what else really unifies them ? It's not like people who attend public schools are godless, so the conference just comes off as elitist. On the other side of it, the West Coast Conference schools to my knowledge (except maybe Brigham Young-I don't know) aren't even necessarily screening appllicants based on their religion so much as their academic qualifications and money.

However much sense it makes to organize conferences geographically that doesn't work for the haves who aspire to achieve more. The have-nots would in turn get pummeled instead of playing like universities. Cal and Stanford would not be happy about being forced to play UCD every year in basketball or baseball and against whom would Hawaii even play ?

I think the answer is for conferences to loosen requirements for membership that are based on the level of participation. There should be more affiliate-memberships and not less.

And this seems like a topic with a lot of meat to it, so I will start an additional thread

Just curious-is there some kind of template that potential recruits are instructed to use if they plan to post about scholarship offers on social media, or do you think they're just copying each other, sort of social referencing ? The reason is most of them start with "After a great conversation with..." and the only commonn deviation is to thank God or family. It would not surprise me if they were in fact instructed on what to say in order to avoid legal issues and negative media attention.

That makes sense because he's from Colorado.

There sure is. I just looked it up myself.

https://cadss.ucdavis.edu/graduation

It seems to me like he's abusing the system. Not saying they don't exist but how many graduate programs do you know of that you can complete start to finish in 1 year while playing college basketball ? Apparently he either found two of them or isn't taking his pstgraduate education as seriously as he should. Is he going for a doctorate in Basketball Studies ?

I think that was an excellent way of explaining why UCD needs better resources available to all students, not just the athletes. Employers don't want to hire people with no experience, but where do you get the experience if no one will hire you in that field without experience ? Especially in these days of staffing shortages there needs to be an easier way to get qualified college graduates into jobs, even if they're just entry level with merit-based promotions upon acquisition of needed skills. The university needs to be playing matchmaker for everyone who deserves it if they're doing it for athletes.

And perhaps UCD doesn't need to be Division I. Are student athletes any more successful in their career fields because they played Division I sports ? As alumni our access to the front porch is mostly limited to campus events for the community (Picnic Day for example) and athletic competitions, so it's natural for us to want to see our favorite teams compete at the highest level, but is it the right thing for the school ? I think the jury's still out on that. There are supporting details for both answers.

According to his Denver profile he was in graduate school at both Portland Denver..and now a third school. Ridiculous. If he hadn't already graduated I'd swear he was Van Wilder.

Oh boy, who wouldn't be lining up for a chance to recruit a seemingly fickle non-superstar 1-year player ??!! Top3...he should feel lucky anyone's interested in letting him continue playing after he just flitted around like that. Sure will be nice when all the COVID kids have exhausted their eligibilty and there's a decrease in the Re-recruitment All-Stars. Like weddings but bored with your wife ? Jump in the marriage transfer portal.

There was really a treasure trove of interesting background stories about this year's baseball team members. UC Davis really had a chance to market this "Bad News Bears" season to attract more interest and support for the program. It kind of missed the boat.

As a baseball fan was disappointed with this article in that I thought Dunning could have given more supporting details that a person casually following the team wouldn't know. Investigative reporting, you know ?

For example the tryouts he mentioned. That's interesting, tell us more. Who are some of the unsung heroes who made the team out of these tryouts ? That's human interest stuff and it's good reading. For example, Nathan Lemos made the team this year after not playing since his freshman year, what's he been up to ? Playing club ball ? Concentrating only on studies ? Raul Sandoval is graduating after 1 year playing for UCD following 3 playing at the JC. People generally don't graduate 1 year after transferring from a JC so was he at UCD as a student in 2021 and just answered the call to arms (call to baseball gloves ?) as a 5th year senior ? This is the kind of stuff that can inspire people.

And the other part about predicting a .500 or better finish next year, I'd like to know more about his reasons for saying that. I'm not looking to refute them. I would just like to know more about his reasons for optimism so I can feel more optimistic. Without exciting new information I see the 2023 team just doubling or tripling their win total, which would be in line with some of the recent seasons under Vaughn. This team hasn't hasn't had a full-season with a .500 or better record since 2015, and those were teams with full rosters and crops of recruits. So what's he basing that on ? Freshman standouts like Wolbert, Green, Leehey, and Seeman ? Specific exciting new recruits ? That he thinks Nicholson & Co will do a better job ? Kind of left us hanging there, Bob.

I respect that you see it that way. I disagree, however, on the basis that being a student-athlete is a choice and time management skills are required. It is not mandatory that they play sports to go to college.
If money is a concern without an athletic scholarship they can do what everyone else does-apply for financial, academic scholarships and/or get a job. Everyone probably knows about the necessity of time management skills going in. Whether they develop those skills or not is up to them.

Yes, it's difficult to manage all of it but these things come with the territory. I believe the university is under no obligation to assist student-athletes with future employment prospects any more than they are the rest of the student body. That doesn't mean there can't be resources available to help students, just that these resources should be open to all students to at apply for what's available. If the majority of those accepted to such programs based on academic merit wind up being student-athletes so be it.

The idea that athletes are at a disadvantage is likely heavily-based on the thinking that non-athletes have more time available due to no training and competition. The training and competition in themselves are just the athlete's equivalent of having jobs to pay for school, which is a very real requirement for many non-athletes.

For the record I completely support there being programs exclusively for members of the military. and essential public servants. I do not elevate a student-athlete to the same essential status as say, a firefighter. Sports competition is not essential. I can live without them, and so can everyone else. So I reject the implication (not that you made it directly, just saying) that a university owes an ordinary student-athlete anything for competing beyond whatever scholarships were promised and any financial obligations determined by a court of law for damages suffered. I made the "ordinary" distinction because extraordinary athletes whose NIL are used to bring in money are entitled to be paid.

What we have here is a disagreement over a university's responsibilities to its student-athletes, and that's fine. When I made the original post I didn't expect to find myself with popular opinions. I'm not trying to change anyone's, and I'm not changing mine, just voice the ones I have to people who would understand what I'm talking about. Mission accomplished.

I recall (and mind you, it's been a long time so my memory could be incorrect) athletic department releases in the 90's in which it was stated wrestling was the only Division I sport. I did wonder why they didn't talk about water polo, gymnastics, lacrosse, etc, teams that mostly played Division I opponents. Gymnastics won a championship, but it wasn't designated to my knowledge as D1 or D2. Was it specifically a conference championship then ? Not clear on that. Lacrosse almost exclusively played D-I programs due to lack of opponents.

The reason they said this was probably because the WWPA is one of those hybrid sport-specific conferences that crosses NCAA Divisions to have enough membership. If the Aggies (or the Tritons, who were a Division III institution at the time) won the conference they would certainly go to NCAA playoffs but to my knowledge those playoffs weren't separated by Division. So it's probably an official distinction made without there being a real difference.

But that doesn't answer the question of why UCD was Division I in wrestling if the PAC-10 for that sport also crossed division lines (SF State was in it too, weren't they ?) Only explanation I can think of is that the competition was sponsored by an established Division I conference as opposed to a non-divison sport-specific entity ? But then what about women's water polo ? No clue.

So what I have deduced from this discussion so far is that whoever sent out those publications back in the 90's either wasn't speaking accurately or they were excluding the sport-specific conferences from the conversation.