I guess it’s because I live in Southern California and I get a little nostalgic every time I visit the campus/town. It really is a pretty area. Although it’s not in St. Helena/Napa/Sonoma or what have you, it’s wine country to the rest of the world.
I went back right before the pandemic started after about 8 years of not being anywhere close to it. It’s gotten much better than what I remember without it’s “DNA” being changed. The school and area has so much potential.
Whenever I hear negative comments about the Davis area in general it’s always from people that have never visited. I can’t tell you how many people have told me that UC Davis was their favorite campus after visiting it. It has very little to do with the campus itself, but more to do with the general area and the city of Davis.
I’ll toast Davis with an Amador county Zin. a Lodi Zin or a Dry Creek Zin I’m not snobby about appellations.
I had a friend in the dorms, who told me I had to see something that he thought was outstanding. He was a surfer from San Clamente, so he’s seen some beautiful scenery before. But the Sacramento River was beautiful to him.
I was talking with a fellow from SoCal many years ago and we were discussing the amazing size and geographical diversity of California. At some point, he said he thought the state was too big and therefore too difficult to govern because of how different northern and southern California were in his opinion.
He went on to say that we really should have two states: Northern and Southern California. Then he asked me, hypothetically, where I would draw the dividing line and I said, "Well maybe just north or south of Fresno. So I asked him where he would divide the state and he said, "Just north of Santa Barbara."
That kind of surprised me and I asked him why and he said, "Because the carpet ends end just north of Santa Barbara and the linoleum begins!" Needless to say that cracked me up!!
Not hemorrhaging, worse. Over $10M a year deficit? Plus hundreds of Millions of dollars in debt from the facilities upgrade and retrofit, and now no fans w disaster FB season.
Some of the previous discussions included 3 states, which made more sense. Southern, Central (including San Francisco), and Northern California (rural, North of Marin?).
I recall hearing that most schools lose a lot of money in their FBS programs, with the exceptions of the top programs like Alabama and Ohio State. So why do they do it? I've heard it's alumni pressure, publicity to potential donors and recruitment of students.
An Aggie friend's wife who went to HSU and is from McKinleyville (Humboldt County) says Davis isn't even in the real NorCal. I wonder what she would think of your friend's comment.