Thanks for the information. Obviously I had no idea that the home school provides horses for visitors. I will have to read up a bit. How are horses distributed for the event? Is there some sort of drawing or lottery? It would seem to be a home-turf advantage if the home riders had horses with which they work everyday and the visitors are riding unfamiliar mounts. But as is apparent, what do I know?

Many, many years ago the UCD horse polo club won a national club championship, largely with the support of a rancher/horse breeder from the central valley. Pattern story for a made for TV movie...the rough unpolished kids from the west beat the refined blue-bloods from the east coast. Coincidentally it was the backdrop for a movie for TV with John Ritter titled "Leave Yesterday Behind." Ritter plays a polo player and vet student who is paralyzed in a riding accident.

And speaking of equestrian events, and with a John Ritter tie-in, I have two words in support of an equestrian team: Kaley. Cuoco.

Interesting. Looks like they followed the money trail (nothing wrong with that). For equestrian they are able to categorize some of the expenses as academic through the vet school and beach volleyball had a donor step up for the facility. Comparatively speaking a beach volleyball center is cheap, but having just been involved in building one, I have to say there is more to it than just digging a sand pit. It must be the RIGHT sand, and yes, I've had coaches insist on measuring the sand grains with micrometers.

Been awhile since I have made a comment on AST but I read it almost daily and love the info as it keeps me connected to the "happenings".
I just wanted to mention that back in the late 60's and early 70's Gary Colberg and cohorts built, maintained and played on sand volleyball courts located adjacent to, and west of the Rec Center. I personally helped maintain and play on the courts during my undergrad years and after graduation (class of 72). All the sand was quite coarse and was trucked in from the Sacramento River personally by Gary and friends. I'm sure if a few dedicated individuals can self-build sand courts, then the University can do a better job and certainly with much better sand.
As far as equestrian, it seems a natural fit for UCD. Go Ags!

Chase the money...

Any idea where they will build the volleyball courts? Hopefully they do a nice job and build stands and have a scoreboard.

My equestrian competitor niece just came back from a big SoCal equestrian event; says that our move to add equestrian as a varsity sport was the talk of the meet. Not surprising that there is much speculation is that we will attract a very large and qualified pool of head coaching applicants as well as student athletes. What i did find surprising is that she said there was also a lot of talk about people wanting to donate horses to the program= as sort of a “thank you” for adding this sport. This is apparently a very big deal for the equestrian world. These people also tend to have a lot of money and are not above showing their appreciation by spending it. Interestingly, one competitor she knows (from California) is on a Texas college equestrian team is thinking of transferring to UCD, but wonders if she has to sit out a year. Does anyone know if she would have to sit in this situation?

Sorry to follow, but, by the way, remember the ADs reference to “philanthropic support” necessary to pick this sport? My niece says that two of her competitors in her equestrians meet in SoCal were named Jennifer Gates and Eve Jobs. Yes, note those last names for the record. Yes, the Gates and the Jobs daughters! Gates at Stanford has no equestrian team. Do not know about Eve. Further info to come. . . .

How are equestrian meets scored? I think it matches our university well. Beach Volleyball is no surprise. I wonder where they'll build the courts? I bet students will use it for tournaments too?

Remember about 15 years ago when Stanford's rugby club forfeited rather than play Cal? Two Stanford alums reacted to the news by donating a spare million or so to the school to upgrade the club, including building an outstanding rugby facility. Got a problem? Throw money at it until it goes away.

Would be nice to think Gates and Jobs might direct some spare cash (and a daughter?) to Davis. Less nice to think they might establish an equestrian facility on the Peninsula for the use of the Junior University...On the other hand it would help to have another school with an equestrian team in California, and since the home team provides horses, I bet Stanford would come up with some very nice ones.

Well it now appears that our addition of these 2 new sports was just a complete waste of money. Washington Post reports this morning that Florida Atlantic University had the same problem we did. Not enough woman athletes. Not good under Title IX. So rather than adding sports, FAU simply added woman athletes- FAKE ONES that is. 50+/- all woman’s track teams members and submitted this new figure to the NCAA. So no Title IX problem. But there was a problem when a Palm Beach Post reporter found out about it. FAUs response: Oops, “clerical error.” OK, nice try, but it sure worked for awhile!

What? I thought false facts and fake news were legit nowadays... :cool:

But if something like that happened in Davis, there would be calls to drop back to DII.

It turns out, UC not so clean. UCI did the same thing a few years back by creating out of whole cloth a nonexsistent FAKE “UCI indoor woman’s track team!”. This was a few woman and not even close to FAUs fraud, so not so upsetting. Also, i have to clarify this: Title IX reports go the Dept. of Education, not the NCAA. My mistake. But with our new Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, I wonder if she even cares about this stuff.

Just as long as there are no illegal FISA warrants for the FBI to fabricate an illegal "investigation" ... unbelievable.

Shocked that FAU would be involved in anything like this. UCD's mens basketball coach for the 1989-90 year was Lonnie Williams who had previously coached at FAU. He left Davis after one year under a cloud...as I recall there were allegations that he had fudged a bit on his application.

At least FAU has cleaned up their athletics with the hiring of Lane Kiffin as head football coach.

"FAU reported it had more than doubled the number of athletes on its women’s track team from the previous year, but the team’s own website shows that was far from the case. The staggering numbers: FAU reported having 98 women’s track athletes. The roster showed no more than 43, and the team photo showed 38.

The 98 women, FAU claimed, occupied 222 roster spots on its cross country, indoor track and outdoor track teams, more than any women’s track program among the 127 major sports schools."

https://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/gender-equality-fau-gave-feds-false-numbers-ranked-near-bottom/r1HcYrXaoDkiq5DbW8woOI/

I recall many problems which The Aggie covered, most notable was Coach Williams threatened one of our players to a fight. The player was a Kodak All American.

Seems a lot of people, often coaches, lose their jobs because of "misstatements" in their resumes or applications. Don't need to deal with things that may be judgement calls or invite litigation when you can point out a clear cut factual error in the application.

UC Davis announced today a new equipment contract with adidas. Addidas to supply uniforms and equipment shoes etc. for all ICA sports. That’s a lot of equipment and amounts to a lot of money. According to IndyStar that could amount to close to $2000 per football player, if you include practice gear, extra shoes for different surfaces, mouth guards, under garments, etc. But addidas does not make equestrian gear which for English competitors is hugely expensive. For example: boots- $250-300; competition jacket- $249-350; helmet- $400-500; breeches- $85; gloves- $50; and for some jumping events an inflatable body protector is required- $250-350. So, somewhere in the $1500 to 2500 range for each athlete. Western much less, but still significant. So I guess addidas just has to write a check to the athletes to cover these costs? It would be interesting to learn just how this will be handled.

Sorry to follow, but will addidas supply the tack and equipment for the horse athletes? Up to 20 horses needed for a major NCEA event. Average cost of tack is roughly $2000 per horse, this is an expensive sport.

Who supplied unis before, or were we self funded?

Our club equestrian teams are completely self-funded. The membership fees (hunter jumper only) are as follows: Dues: $92 per quarter; IHSA membership: $45; Team Horse Use: $200 per quarter; Coaching fees (mandatory 8 lessons) $190 per quarter; Insurance: $10; Show fees: $19.50 per day; Hotel: $30 per night; Gas: team shares cost. So figure $600 per quarter on average. Kastel Denmark sponsors the team. It makes equestrian apparel but apparently does not supply the team with unis. Members are expected to share their clothing, helmets, and boots, etc. with team mates! Thus, this sport is very expensive and the fact that just the hunter jumper team has 35 members is a real credit to the organizations popularity. How the Varsity Team is funded will be one of the first questions the new coach will have to answer. Hope Dr. Blue mentioned this to the Addidas folks during his negotiations!